Weekly Recipe: Daily Granola

I found this recipe at http://orangette.blogspot.com/2008/02/consider-it.html. When I was younger, my grandfather used to make wonderful homemade granola and I've always wanted to make my own. While this wasn't as good as my grandpa's, it seems like a pretty good starting point. I like the ingredients, but the end result was a little too chewy and sweet for my taste. Next time I'll cut down on some of the sweeteners and let it bake a little longer (I did about 40 minutes this time).

Daily Granola (Modified from Orangette.com who modified it from Nigella's Feast

Dry ingredients:
5 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups raw almonds
1 1/2 cups pecan halves
1 cup hulled raw sunflower seeds
1 cup dried coconut
¾ cup sesame seeds
¾ cup light brown sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. salt

Wet ingredients:
¾ cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/3 cup brown rice syrup
¼ cup honey
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

Set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Preheat the oven to 300°F. In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients. In a small bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ones, and stir well.

Spread the mixture evenly on two rimmed baking sheets. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until evenly golden brown. Set a timer to go off every ten minutes while the granola bakes, so you can rotate the pans and give the granola a good stir. Remove the pans from the oven, stir well – this will keep it from cooling into a hard, solid sheet – and set aside to cool. The finished granola may still feel slightly soft when it comes out of the oven, but it will crisp as it cools.

Scoop cooled granola into to a large zipper-lock plastic bag or other airtight container. Store in the refrigerator indefinitely.

One Week Wait

Today I am six weeks (5 weeks and 6 days) pregnant. Only 6 days until my first OB appointment - and it seems like I'm still pregnant! My first appointment is on July 9th, and I'm really really hoping that we get to see a heartbeat at that appointment. If we see a heartbeat, we will tell J's family during our birthday weekend in Philly.

I haven't told my family yet, but I was thinking of telling them today. Inexplicably, I'm more afraid of saying it outloud to too many people than too many people knowing. Even when I do share the news I'm trying to approach it as a positive pregnancy test and nothing more. I know that I would call my mom if I had bad news at my first appointment, so it would be best for her to know in advance when it is coming.

I have told a total of 4 people so far - for various reasons. The first person I told was my best friend since she was in town the day after I got my first positive test. The second person I told was a girl I met at Korean class. I only told her because she doesn't have any connections to anyone else I know - sort of like sharing the news with a stranger - and only because she told me that she was 11 weeks pregnant. The good news is that if everything works out well, we may have another half - Korean family in the area with a baby at almost exactly the same age. I also told my knitting group. Since knitting group has essentially evolved into an infertility support group, we always discuss what cycle day we are on when we are planning on going to fertility clinics, etc, so it was hard NOT to tell them.

Every person I've shared the news with knows about my losses. 2 of them have gone through miscarriages themselves before and can very much relate to not wanting to share the news widely. I know there is nothing I can do now except hope for the best.

Weekly Recipe: Lemon Poppyseed Cake

I've decided to start a new series on this blog where I post a recipe once a week. This won't be any glamorous food blog entry, just a way to record one of my favorite recipes. The series may go through themes - maybe I'll even start posting pictures?! Don't get your hopes up, though.

The first recipe is my mother's Lemon Poppyseed Cake. It is delicious, moist, lemon-y (of course!) and incredibly simple to make.

Ingredients:
1 Box Reg. Yellow Cake Mix
1 Small Instant Pudding Mix (lemon)
3/4 c Oil
3/4 c. Water
3/4 c. Lemon Juice (I only had a 1/2 c, but it was still good)
1/4 c Poppyseeds
6 eggs

Instructions:
Prehead oven to 375 degrees. Mix all ingredients. Grease and flour a bundt pan or 2 loaf pans. Bake for 35-45 minutes.

Baby Shower Knits

I know I've basically disappeared from blogging lately. Hopefully I'll become better, but life has been hectic lately. I've been planning a wedding, buying a house, applying for new jobs, and knitting. It is no wonder there isn't time for writing about it!



Last week I went to a good friend's baby shower and finished two handknits for her. I procrastinated on the finishing until the very end - in fact, the morning of the baby shower I knit the garter stitch border, bound off, and blocked the blanket while I sewed buttons on the baby sweater! On to details about the knits:

Pattern: Cabled Baby Blanket from Debbie Bliss SimplyBaby
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino (in Leaf?)
Notes: I learned to cable without a cable needle on this project. I liked the pattern of the blanket because it kept my interest longer, but still near the end I was dreading knitting on this project. Again I've promised that I will not knit baby blankets as gifts, but we'll see how long that lasts.

I almost a whole skein of the yarn left because I ran out of time to do another pattern repeat. Luckily I have a lot of other colors of the same yarn, so I'll just need to make a striped sweater later!


Sorry for the low-quality pictures, again this was done the morning of the shower so I didn't have a lot of time! Luckily the recipient is a photographer, so I hope to receive better photos of my knits once the baby arrives!

Detail of cable pattern:
Pattern: Seamless Yoked Baby Sweater - free pattern from the internet (Note: I was able to find a copy by opening the cached page in google, but the original site with the pattern has been taken down)

Yarn: Bernat Softee Baby in white/blue/teal/purple variegated

This was such an easy pattern that I finished it in only a few weeks. I still believe that this sweater looks too girly with the colors. I was torn between putting girly buttons on it and giving it to a different recipient or trying to make it as boyish as possible and give it to its intended recipient. Ultimately, I went with little dog buttons to make it "masculine." Hopefully it will look cute with a baby boy!

I hated the yarn color in this sweater. I will never use cheap variegated yarns again. I thought it might make it look cuter, but it just looked like - well I'll let you see for yourself!

Close up of buttons and collar details:



Sit tight and you may get an update about the actual baby shower!

FO: Baby Shrug

This was sort of a mystery project at least as far as this blog. It was never a work in progress and suddenly, BAM, another finished object!

A few weeks ago, John and I went to Baltimore to go to the NFL playoff game between the Colts and Ravens. While we were up there, we go to meet up with one of John's old fraternity brothers who lives there with his wife and daughter. This was the first time I had met them and of course I was inspired to start a new project for the baby as soon as I got home. I was able to use some yarn from my stash and knit this one up in 2-3 weeks. Just in time to meet up with them again today for lunch!

Pattern: Baby Shrug from Debbie Bliss SimplyBaby
Size: 12-18 months
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora #15510
Needles: Size 5 and 6

I would definitely knit this pattern again. Not only was it FAST but it is feminine and would be cute in so many colors. I also think it is very usable for babies because you don't have to worry about buttons or any other closures! It is knit in one piece so there were only 2 seams (the sides and the sleeves) to sew. I realize though that finishing is less forgiving on larger guage projects, so I'm not perfectly happy with the seams. I don't think anyone will notice except other knitters, but after re-seaming 2-3 times I was ready to accept imperfection.