alexandra’s kitchen: The Best Granola & A Little Blogging Change

Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Best Granola & A Little Blogging Change

It has come to my attention that my blog can take quite a bit of time to load on various computers. I'm not really sure why this is happening, but I find it very frustrating and I am in the process of doing something about it. Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that part of the reason I have been such a terrible blogger these past few weeks is because I'm trying to figure out what to do. I'll keep you posted, and I apologize for the recent lack of activity on alexandra's kitchen.

But before I leave you, I just thought I'd remind you all about one of my all-time favorite recipes. It has been over a year since I made this granola and it is just as delectable as I remember. The base recipe has been adapted from the Barefoot Contessa and the candied nut recipe comes from one of the Moosewood cookbooks. With the addition of dried cranberries and blueberries, this granola makes the best breakfast/snack/lunch/dinner ever. Seriously. It most definitely will appear on Olalie's Menu.

Candied cashews and almonds:

Granola and nuts mixed with dried cranberries and blueberries:

Nuts before roasting:

Granola just out of the oven:

Also, for those of you who live in the San Diego-Orange County area and have yet to make plans for Valentine's Day, Cafe Mimosa is offering a four-course prix fixe tasting menu on both Friday and Saturday nights (Feb. 13th and 14th). The menu sounds fantastic!

The Eggmobile

The eggmobile houses laying hens. It follows the herd of cattle, arriving to grass they've grazed on four days earlier.The hens peck at the four-day-old cow pies, eating various insects, larvae and parasites - rich sources of protein - and accomplishing a whole lot more along the way: By eating the fly larvae and parasites, they rid the land of potential pathogens and disease; by scratching through the droppings and spreading them across the grass, they enable the manure to sink into the ground and fertilize the soil; and by eating the pesky insects, they reduce the presence of one of the cows' biggest irritants.

The Barn

Joel Salatin stands in the open-sided shelter where his cows spends a portion of the winter. During the winter, the cows eat hay (dried grass accumulated throughout the growing season), and live on a bedding consisting of woodchips, sawdust and old hay to absorb the cows' excrement. When the heavy cows tread on their nitrogen-rich manure and on the carbon-rich bedding, packing it together, they allow the mixture to ferment (anaerobic composting). By adding corn to the bedding, Salatin entices his pigs to turn the bedding into compost: When the cows return to pasture in March, the pigs dig through the densely packed bedding, searching for the tasty fermented corn, aerating the pile and turning it into compost for the spring.

Corn Pudding