Hippie Granola

I love granola. But I have trouble finding granola that does not have high-fructose corn syrup or sugar in it. So I decided to try my hand at making some sugar-free granola at home and it actually turned out really good. So, if you would like to try it out, here is the recipe:

Hippie Granola

2 cups rolled oats [preferably not quick/instant oats]

1/2 cup All-Bran Buds [or similar, fiber-rich cereal]

1/2 cup pecan pieces

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp apple pie spice

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp maple syrup

1/2 tbsp coconut oil [you can also use safflower, vegetable or canola oil]

3/4 cup raisins or dried cranberries

~ Preheat oven to 350°. Cover large sheet pan with parchment paper.

~ Combine oats, All-Bran and pecan pieces in a medium bowl. Set aside.

~ In a small bowl, combine applesauce, apple spice, vanilla, honey, maple syrup and oil. Mix well.

~ Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

~ Place mixture onto prepared pan and bake for about an hour, stirring every 15 minutes until crunchy.

~ When mixture is done baking, place into a large bowl. Add dried cranberries.

~ Let granola come to room temperature before you store in airtight container or bag.

~ Serve with milk or just eat plain as a snack :)

Friendship Bread

I remember having friendship bread as a kid and really loving it, probably because it has a ton of sugar in it and then it is sprinkled with sugar. And having made it again, I can tell you with utter certainty that it is very good :)

The interesting thing about this bread is that it is made from a starter and takes 10 days of rising and feeding until it is ready to be used. You can make the starter yourself [recipe below] or you can get a starter from a friend.

Whether you make the starter from scratch or get one from a friend, you end up with three more "starters" that can be given away to friends. Hence, friendship bread. This is pretty much the bakers form of a chain letter, except it is completely delicious and not at all annoying.

This bread is better known as "Amish friendship bread," however, in all of my in depth research [thank you, Google] I have not been able to track down any evidence that actually links this bread to the Amish. So, it is really just plain old friendship bread. It would totally be more interesting if it actually was a traditional Amish recipe. Sorry.

Friendship Bread Starter

1/4 cup warm water

1/4 oz [1 package] active dry yeast

3 cups flour

3 cups sugar

3 cups milk

*Note: Do not use any metal utensils or bowls in this whole process*

~ Dissolve the yeast into the warm water in a small bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes.

~ Mix 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar together in a very large bowl. Add 1 cup milk and mix until the lumps have smoothed out. Mix in the yeast until well blended. Cover loosely. I used a plate to cover the bowl. You can you plastic wrap, just drape it over the bowl loosely. It needs to have a little bit of air flow. Set in a safe place. This is day 1.

~ Days 2-5: Stir mixture and recover.

~ Day 6: Stir mixture and add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Stir until smooth. Recover and let sit.

~ Days 7-9: Stir mixture and recover.

~Day 10: Stir mixture and add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Set aside 1 cup of the mixture to make friendship bread. From the rest of the mixture portion out as many 1 cup batches into glass or plastic containers as you can [I had 4]. These are your starters, you can give them all away or keep one for yourself. Make sure to give them away with these instructions. Use recipe below to make the bread.

Traditional Friendship Bread Recipe

1 cup friendship bread starter mixture

1 cup oil

1/2 cup milk

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 [5.1 oz] instant vanilla pudding mix

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup nuts [optional]

~ Pre-heat oven to 325°. Butter two loaf pans. Coat buttered pans with sugar.

~ In a large bowl mix the starter mixture, oil, milk, eggs and vanilla together until well blended.

~ In a separate bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, pudding mix, and salt together.

~ Mix the dry ingredients into the wet and mix just until blended. Fold in nuts.

~ Portion into the two prepared loaf pans and bake for 1 hour. Cool on cooling rack and enjoy!

There are many variations of the bread. You can have a lot of fun with it. Experiment :)

Goodbye, Wells Fargo.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good-bye.

[FYI: Contrary to what you might think, burning checks is not the best way to dispose of them. Nor is it as fun as one might imagine.]

Investigating 9/11/2001

First off, I would like to offer my sincere condolences to those who lost siblings, spouses, parents, children and friends due to the events on September 11, 2001. I would also like to thank the everyday heroes who gave so selflessly that day and in the days to follow.

I remember feeling a complete sense of humanity as I watched people tirelessly search the rubble, heard stories of people helping others out of the buildings ahead of themselves, and saw emergency services boldly rush to the dismal scene. Hearing countless stories of people coming together to help one another in such a desperate time is something that is generally rare, but during this time they were plentiful. It made my 13 year-old heart so happy to know that there were good people out there. But there were also the bad people who had caused this devastating event.

I do not remember being angry. I knew we had our sights set on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. It seemed like everything happened so fast from there. Bin Laden. Al-Qaeda. Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein. Iraq. It seemed like we were suddenly everywhere and I didn't quite understand why. And, alas 10 years later we are still fighting the "War on Terror" and I still don't quite understand the shaky logic on how we have ended up here. The United States has paid very highly for this war with both our soldiers and our tax dollars. Since 2001 5,796 soldiers have given their lives for this cause, 41,221 soldiers have been wounded for this cause and finally US citizens have supported this cause with $1,248,027,079,147 in tax dollars. All of these numbers continue to grow at an alarming rate.

It seems like this all happened so quickly that we hardly had time to examine what really happened on September, 11, 2001. We didn't have time to ask some tough questions. We were all so caught up in patriotism that we jumped into a war during a time that we should have been mourning and deciphering the evidence of the events of that gruesome day.

I want to know what happened that day. I am not convinced that terrorists are to blame, and I am not entirely convinced that it was an "inside job," but I do think that there are many questions about what happened that day that need to be answered. And I do find it suspicious that our government has refused to release information and answer these questions.

I have not bothered to delve into the specific questions for a couple reasons. One, many of the questions are complex enough that I would have to write a lengthy lead-in to express the necessity of the question itself [and I don't want to do that, call me lazy]. And two, "Loose Change" [below] does an excellent job of presenting these questions, no need to reinvent the wheel.

If you have never watched this documentary, it is well worth the hour and twenty minutes to do so. Also, it is not a Michael Moore, shove conspiracy down your throat kind of movie. It simply presents evidence and asks questions. They let you come to your own conclusions based on the information they have provided.

If you have never questioned what happened on September 11, 2001, you should. If after you investigate, you still believe that bin Laden is to blame, then you have lost nothing. It is good to have a thoughtful and quizzical eye.

I know some of you may think that I do not like America and that I am not patriotic. And that is not entirely true. I am an American who thinks that America has lost it's way. I do not believe that we are beyond repair. I think that America is made up of intelligent, truth-seeking, well-intentioned people. However, we have to come together and demand more of our government. We must demand transparency. We must demand more freedom. And we must expect more of ourselves as a society. A government is its people, so if we are unhappy with our government, we have the power to change it if we can just band together as a people.

I am beginning to rabbit-trail. So without further adieu, here is Loose Change:

And here is a follow-up movie that they made in 2006, Loose Change: Final Cut:

Garden Fail

Our garden has not been so fruitful. This is our bounty so far:

Sad. I know.

We are pretty sure that we just planted too late in the season. And we have had Bambi issues.

Oh, well. We always have next year.

[And there is still some hope for our tomatoes. We'll see.]

Kittehs?!

Christian and I think that life is more fun with pets [well, most of the time ;)]. So, we got two kitties about a month ago. Meet Luke and Leia:

O hai. I iz Leia. I luv tois lyk kurtins and aprons. I iz energetik kitteh. I iz noktural, isn't that interesting? I iz skeptikal of most sings and I dunt reerly lyke being held. Hoomins eat yummy smerring stuff, I lyke to have a bit erey now and then. I lyke to has sleepy on the warm kontrapshun that the hoomins are aways rooking at. See rue yater!

Tranlation: Hello, I am Leia. I like to get into trouble and play with things that are not meant to be kitty toys. I climb the curtains and I am constantly trying to pull the aprons down from where they hang. Oh, and I wake up at 5am and like to put my nose in my human's face and purr as loudly as I possibly can. And then I sleep all day. I am a bit shy, but I will snuggle with my humans on my own terms. I love to beg for human food and I have no shame in just taking food right from my human's plate. My favorite place to sleep is the computer, but only when my human's are using it. Yay! Good to meet you!

Oh hai. I iz Luke. You luk fun! Can I rubz my face on you? Do you rant to hold me, preeez? I luvz mah hoomins! I getz up early as sun to spend tyme wif them. They lykes it. I luvz to race my hoomins tru the house. They lykes it. I cant stand it wen mah hoomins reave, so I wait for zem by the big opening. They lykes it. My toi-box under the synk iz the best, such fun tois in there. I luv the windos. I lyke to walk on the kontrapshun that makes noyz. I lyke to uze the big blac box as skraching post. I LUV TOEZ!!! I luv bein skwirt with water! Byze!!

Translation: Hello, I am Luke. Do you want to play? I am a bit of an attention whore. I want to be in my human's face ALL THE TIME. I wake up a bit earlier than my sister, I am usually up and bothering my human's by 3:30am. I love to run, especially when I can do so in between the legs of my human's as they are walking around the house. Oh, and I love to wait by the door while my human's are out, so when they get back I can try to escape. It is funny to watch them fumble with keys and bags while I try to get out. Muahahahaha. The trash is my favorite place to find new toys. And isn't climbing screens the best? I am a very talkative kitty. If one of my humans is on the computer, you can bet that I will be trying to walk all over the keyboard. I like to claw at my human's amp, nice and soft. Boy do I love nibbling at the short-haired human's toes. The humans seem to like water fights, they are always squirting me with a spray bottle when I am doing my favorite things, but that is ok because now I like it! Yay! Nice to meet you!

Ok. So my kitty speak is not great, but you get the picture.

In all seriousness we are having a lot of fun!

Amish Country Roll Butter

Here in Whitefish there are some Mennonite and Amish communities close by. We see them around town in their traditional garb [I saw the cutest little boy wearing suspenders and riding on his dad's shoulders. Adorable].

What's really awesome is that they sell their goods in the local stores, so us gentiles can benefit from their very natural lives.

So far, my favorite find is this butter.

I will admit that it's a little harder to work with than normal butter because it doesn't come in sticks, but it is really good. And I like that we can support our local community.

And best of all, it's much cheaper than name brand butter.