Feeling the Crunch

I haven't shaved for more than a week. My hair is growing way out as I haven't had it cut for months. I've recently gone vegan (working on a post about that soon, I promise). I live in a house with 5-6 other people right now. I've been wearing sandals every day to school. I bought a bunch of potted herbs from the farmers' market.

And yesterday I made granola.

It's a very hippie time for me.

Luckily, it's also a very foodie time (as always), which is why I made this granola with hazelnuts and cacao nibs, as well as dried organic cranberries (sweetened with apple juice). The recipe loosely follows Alton Brown's, but I cut back on the sugar and nuts so that I would actually end up with granola instead of Candied Nuts With Oat Garnish (which is sorta what his recipe ends up being).



Foodie Hippie Granola

Preheat your oven to 250F/120C

Mix together:
9 cups of oats (rolled, not quick cooking)
1 cup hazelnuts, skin on, broken into pieces (I did this with some perfunctory thumping with a mortar and pestle. I tried the rolling pin + kitchen cloth thing before and it didn't really work out)
1 1/2 cups slivered almonds
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Spread this out on baking sheets and put them in the oven. Stir this up every 15 minutes. Total baking time is about an hour and a half (I like my granola well-cooked).

Take out of the oven and let cool completely, then mix in:
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 1/2 cups cacao nibs

Store in an airtight container (or, if you eat it every day like me, store half of it in a plastic bag on the counter, since it doesn't hang around long enough to go stale)