Granola

Store-bought granolas are often loaded with sugar, fat and salt. This recipe cuts down on all of those things and you can adjust the ingredients to your own tastes.


Servings: About 6 cups


Video

Wake up to homemade granola


Ingredients


3 cups rolled oats

1 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut

¾ cup pumpkin seeds

1 cup pecans (or any nut) roughly chopped

1/3 cup honey

½ tsp real vanilla extract

2 tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp salt

½ cup dried blueberries (or cranberries)

½ cup dried cherries

½ cup dried apricot, chopped roughly


Method

Preheat oven to 300 F.

In a bowl combine the oats, coconut, pumpkin seeds, flax and pecans.

In a separate small bowl mix the honey, vanilla, maple syrup and salt.

Pour the honey mixture over the dry mixture and toss until evenly coated.

Put parchment down on two cookies sheets. Spread half the granola mixture on each sheet. Put the sheets into the oven and check the granola after 10 minutes, stirring to turn the mixture.

Bake for a total of 20 minutes or until the granola is golden and fragrant.

Remove from the oven and cool so the granola can be handled. Pour it into a big bowl and mix in the dried fruit while the granola is still warm.

Cool completely and then store in a sealed container.

Nicolette Scorsese - National Lampoon Christmas Vacation

Started out her career as a model, which is where she met her former boyfriend, actor/model Antonio Sabato Jr..
The grand-daddy of them all - she still rocks my world every XMas when this film is shown.
Kinda like a treat for the big boys - still gorgeous BTW

Neruda 11 & 17 - Studies in Indifference or not

Cien sonetos de amor (100 Love Sonnets) is a collection of sonnets written by the Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda originally published in Argentina in 1959.

It was dedicated to his beloved wife -at the time-, Matilde Urrutia, but that is another long and complicated story.

It is divided into the four stages of the day: morning, afternoon, evening, and night.

This collect has always been a bit of a Rorschach test for me: which poem do you like the best and why. The easy answer has always been  No. 11 – it is obvious – vulgar in an appealing way – soft and gooey in an unappealing way.

I have always loved No. 17 – almost dropped it when it appeared in Patch Adams (horrible movie!) but it always draws me in when I go on a Neruda jag.

Take a look – let me know what you think – if you have another candidate, I am always delighted to find new avenues to explore.

Love Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
 
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.