Coconut Almond Granola with Four Fruits

 

I know I'm dating myself here, but to the younger generation, let me tell you that Kate Hudson has a mom named Goldie Hawn. Back in the day she made some very funny movies, among them a breakout film called “Private Benjamin.” I'll never forget when she joined the army how surprised she was that it was not at ALL as depicted in the commercials -- no condos, no great meals, no beach vacations. Nope, just marching around in the rain, during which time she recited a rather funny monologue about what she wanted to do, and how she was a “nice person” and shouldn't have to endure such torture. To illustrate her remark she said she never “…went to anyone's house empty-handed.”

Well, I'm pretty much the same. I’m going to dinner tonight and, like Private Benjamin, I never go any place empty-handed, so thought I'd make up some Coconut Almond Granola and take a large jar to the hostess, and two smaller bags to the other couples who will be in attendance. It is so delicious that you can pretty much skip the bananas, milk, yogurt, and spoon, and just dig in!

This is my own personal recipe, a mishmash of a variety of others I've run across over the years. I've found you can pretty much toss in what you like according to what happens to be in your pantry at the time.

Coconut Almond Granola with Four Fruits

4 c. old-fashioned oats

¾ c. sliced almonds

½ c. sweetened flaked coconut
½ c. sunflower, pumpkin, or flax seeds

2/3 c. (packed) brown sugar

1½ t. ground allspice

½ t. kosher salt

1 t. ground cinnamon

1 stick unsalted butter

4 T. honey

½ c. pitted, chopped dates

½ c. dried apricots, quartered

½ c. golden raisins

½ c. raisins, dried cranberries, blueberries, or cherries

Preheat oven to 300°F. Mix first 8 ingredients in large bowl. Melt butter with honey in heavy small saucepan over low heat. Pour over granola mixture and toss well. Spread out mixture on baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add dried fruits; mix to separate any clumps. Continue to bake until granola is golden brown, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes longer. Cool. Do ahead. Can be made 2 weeks ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.

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Challah French Toast

How delicious does this look?  Well, let me tell you I've not had French Toast that tasted any better.  It was superb! I attribute part of it to the homemade challah that I made yesterday, and the other to Ina Garten's Challah French Toast recipe.  It's from her book Barefoot Contessa Family Style and it's worth buying the book for this recipe alone.  

Challah French Toast

6 extra-large eggs

1 1/2 cups half-and-half or milk

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon good honey

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 large loaf challah or brioche bread

Unsalted butter

Vegetable oil

To serve:

Pure maple syrup

Good raspberry preserves (optional)

Sifted confectioners' sugar (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

In a large shallow bowl, whisk together the eggs, half-and-half, orange zest, vanilla, honey, and salt. Slice the challah in 3/4-inch thick slices. Soak as many slices in the egg mixture as possible for 5 minutes, turning once.

Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon oil in a very large saute pan over medium heat. Add the soaked bread and cook for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until nicely browned. Place the cooked French toast on a sheet pan and keep it warm in the oven. Fry the remaining soaked bread slices, adding butter and oil as needed, until it's all cooked. Serve hot with maple syrup, raspberry preserves, and/or confectioners' sugar.

Slicing for French Toast making.

Cozy Cinnamon Waffles with Butter Pecan Sauce

Cozy Cinnamon Waffles with Butter Pecan Sauce

Well, there's good news and bad news with the new recipe I tried this morning, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

One of my favorite cookbooks is a presentation of the St. Louis Junior League called St. Louis Days St. Louis Nights.  You'll be seeing a lot of it in the future because I have success cooking from this book one recipe after another.  So, I thought, it stood to reason then that the subsequent publication of the [same] Junior League, Meet Us in the Kitchen would be equally good.  (Do you follow my reasoning here?)  Well, so far it hasn't.

But there's good news and bad news.  This morning I decided to try a new waffle recipe that, while on paper sounded very good, in reality was just so-so.  As you can see from the picture above, the waffles were a bit, well, limp.  I for one do not care for limp in the morning, and so decided I would not make this recipe again.  BUT!  The Butter Pecan Sauce was delicious! 

Now in the recipe (shown below) it does have a bit of brandy.  You may question the use of brandy in the morning (as did I), but honestly it served more to enhance the flavor of the sauce than to overwhelm it, and my guess is the potentially negative aspect of the brandy would be offset by the caffeine in the coffee (You DO have coffee, right?).  So trust me when I tell you that I did not find myself stumbling around or slurring my words as the result of this sauce.  I did find it delicious overall, and absolutely wonderful on a scoop of pumpkin ice cream.  Yes, I did have a scoop of ice cream for breakfast, but it was solely for the benefit of the blog. Solely.  I wouldn't lie to you.  My guess is it would be equally yummy on Butter Pecan ice cream (if you happen to like butter pecan ice cream, which I don't, but my husband does and he agreed with me).  So, while I didn't find a great new waffle recipe, I did find a rather elegant sauce for dessert, so all was not lost.

If you would like to try this sauce on waffles, let me just say that in my experience (and it is considerable), you can make wonderful waffle variations using the recipe on the box of Bisquick.  Last month I made delicious pumpkin waffles by simply adding 1/3 cup of solid pack pumpkin and about 1/4 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the recipe on the box and the waffles came out the way they should, i.e. NOT limp, and were delicious. So, if you do indeed want "cozy cinnamon waffles" go with the Bisquick recipe and add 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla.  Do it.  It will give you an excuse to try this wonderful sauce.  And then try it on ice cream.  Go ahead, no one is looking.