Cranberry Orange Granola v1

This came out pretty well for a first try.  I find that most granola I buy is way too sweet. Inspired by some yummy granola I had out at a cafe this morning I thought Id give it a shot. This is just sweet enough for my taste, and the cranberries are still slightly tart despite being sweetened.


The orange flavor I found in the extracts section.  I think I ended up using about 1tsp of it but would probably try adding a bit more next time as the orange flavor isnt very strong.  I thought about using orange juice but wasnt sure it would dry out sufficiently.  The granola came out nice and crispy, it crisps up as it cools. In general I used the low end of the measurements below (i.e. i was closer to 1/8c brown sugar than 1/4c).  I read that its good to have a mix of dry and wet sugars in granola, otherwise i would have used all honey for the sweetening.


3c rolled oats

1c flaked almonds

1/4c honey

1/4c veggie oil

1/8 - 1/4c dark brown sugar

2tsp cinnamon

1-2tsp orange flavor

1/4tsp salt (13 turns of the grinder)

1c juice sweetened cranberries

combine all dry ingredients except cranberries and mix well

combine all wet ingredients (honey, oil, orange flavor) and mix into dry ingredients.  I used my hands to break up clumps. You could also try heating up the honey a little bit to get it to mix easier.

bake at 250-275F for 1hr, stirring every 15min. Let cool and add cranberries

Im also thinking of trying cardamom in this recipe!

My other car is a chicken wing

Food with a face. Something I eat regularly. But not while looking it in the eyes.

I remember the first time I cooked chicken for myself.  The feeling of cutting through raw chicken flesh was really creepy.  I stopped.  I wondered if cutting into human flesh felt the same.  It was gross but I figured I liked eating chicken so I kept going.   After that I cooked the chicken before I cut it up.

A similar thing happened around the same time.  I haven't eaten many whole lobsters in my life but I don't think I will again.  I ordered lobster but didnt realize it was the entire animal.  While I'd had whole lobster before I always found it to be somewhat of a disconcerting experience.  For some reason especially so this time.  I couldn't deal with eating it as it watched me with its cooked eyes.

I am not vegetarian.  I eat meat regularly. Despite these occasions that I find animal products gross I continue to eat them.  Milk I've always disliked (cheese and ice cream however...) and I don't keep eggs in my fridge regularly. There are times when eggs are positively revolting to me. In general I find it bizarre that we eat these foods. Why am I eating embryos? Or equivalently sucking the teet of an animal for baby food?

Today for lunch I'm going meatless. I think maybe even vegan.  Periodically I take a meat-break. It can last for a few days or a few weeks, whatever my body seems to want.  I am struck by how different veggies look to me than meat. Meat can be exciting, but something about a delicious green salad really appeals to my senses

I was at a wing place recently and got a bumper sticker "my other car is a chicken wing."  I find these types of absurdities hilariously funny.  But the experience of eating a chicken wing, again, is also kind of gross.

Does this make me look vegan?

Fill er up again

Hello again blogging.

Ive been thinking a lot lately about stimulants. And addiction.  Sugar, caffiene, this always-on always-connected webosphere that we have been thrust into... so many sources of stimulation.  I feel that this rampant context switching is bad for my brain.  Indeed, I have started losing the ability to focus on things.  Ill be walking around my apartment with my keys in one hand and the next thing  I know I cant find them. Usually be cause I am thinking about 10 other things besides the keys in my hand.

Addiction.  Ive suspected for a while that I'm addicted to problem solving.  I remember getting a book from the library on genetic engineering after a particularly bad breakup in high school.  Whenever I felt overwhelmed with emotion I would just read about genetics.  A distraction from the pain of reality.  When my brain rediscovered the soothing effects of problem solving some years later in college it turned into a hungry beast.  My mind clung to problem solving as a source of pleasure, especially when other areas of my life weren't panning out as desired. Medicated by math.

I feel like we as a society are gorging ourselves.  Gorging on overly sweetened foods our bodies have evolved to seek out.  On caffeinated energy drinks to replace lost sleep from trying to do too much.  On social media - tweeting and blogging and sharing every minute detail of our lives with the world and soaking up everyone else's social media masturbation like a sponge.  While technology has provided us with great advancement it also seems to have given us a potential to take a great step backwards.  We are a world of addicted slaves avoiding the pain of now and therefore also its pleasure.

It is hard to see these things as 'bad' in my opinion.  My addiction to problem solving makes me a highly productive member of society and provides me with income.  Food is food, right? As long as I exercise I should be able to eat whatever I want. Besides, evolution has made my body want to eat this way. We think of cigarettes as bad, not apple danishes. But perhaps that apple danish could have just as bad of an impact on our health.  Especially if you were to chain smoke them.

My family really appreciates that I Facebook everything because I live thousands of miles away from them. Yet how much time have I lost to clicking through posts and pictures of people that mostly I dont know that well? #voyeur

It is with this irony that I decide to blog again. Because I found I either wanted to say something brief on twitter or ramble about something at length.  I think some house cleaning will be going on this winter on many levels.  Some of it Ill reflect on here.