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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Easy Homemade Granola

This Christmas vacation while visiting my parents I learned about the amazing-ness of homemade granola. It is SO delicious and SO easy. It takes just a handful of ingredients and only 20 minutes to make! It has now become a weekend ritual for me. In no time at all my husband and I have yummy granola to take with us to work for the week. We love to put it on Greek yogurt. Mmmmm mmmmm!

My mom uses pecans along with the oats when she makes this awesome recipe. However, I live on an island where nuts are kind of ridiculously expensive. So, instead of pecans I use the sliced almonds from Costco. 


My favorite part is melting down the butter with the honey, brown sugar, and cinnamon. It makes the house smell heavenly! 


Then the melted butter gooey-ness gets poured in to the oat mixture. It's gotta get stirred thoroughly so everything gets coated and the granola will all stick together in the end. 

For baking I like to use my 9x13 pan. It fits it all perfectly. I found with using a bigger sheet the edges would get toaster than the rest of the granola. Parchment paper is also a must for easy clean up!


Finally I just cook it for about 12 minutes at 365 degrees. My mom cooks hers for about 15, so you gotta see what works for your oven. You'll know it's ready when it is all golden brown. 


After it sits for a bit so it hardens together I brake it apart and place in a container. And now we have homemade granola for the week! 

Here is the recipe so you can give it a try!

Ingredients:
3 cups of oats (NOT instant)
1 cup sliced almonds (or other nut of your choosing)
1 stick of butter (YES! The whole stick!)
3 tbsp honey (don't skimp. This holds it all together!)
3 tbsp brown sugar (heaping spoonfuls! This keeps your granola intact too!)
cinnamon (sprinkle on as much or as little as you like)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 365 degrees.

Place oats and nuts in a bowl.

On medium heat melt down butter. Add in honey, brown sugar, and cinnamon.

Pout butter mixture into the bowl with the oats and nuts. Stir together, thoroughly coating.

Line a 9x13 baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour the oat mixture on to the pan.

Bake for 12-15 minutes.





Sunday, January 25, 2015

Let me sum up...

It's been over four years since I've posted on this blog, and a lot sure has happened since! I have become heavily involved with leadership at my school, I have learned A LOT about my profession and how to be a better teacher with each passing year. 

Three years ago I adopted the two cutest puppies in the whole wide world, who are now the two cutest dogs in the whole wide world. One of which was cast as Toto in our local production of The Wizard of Oz. 

Over these past four years I also became a fanatic for karaoke and two years ago my friend Robin even convinced me to compete in Hawaiian Idol- a local karaoke competition. It was so fun!

And the most exciting thing of all is that this past summer I got married! 

Being married is awesome! Not only do I get to live with my best friend, but we also get to work together! That's right. He's a teacher too! Kory teaches special education at the same school I work at. He's the best carpool buddy ever!

On top of planning a wedding and getting married this summer I also read the entire Harry Potter series! It was AWESOME! Since then I've read the Hunger Games series (another awesome series!), the Maze Runner series (not really that awesome, but the OCD in me needed to finish), and a few other books as well (though none compare to HP). 

So, to sum up, the highlights for the past four years are my dogs, karaoke, Harry Potter, and best of all, my husband.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Just Be....

Aloha All!

Well, I am currently on Fall Break and have absolutely no excuse for not updating my blog! So here I go...

The first quarter of the year has now been completed, and I am so far really enjoying teaching first grade. It helps that I have mostly all my same students from last year, so I got to bypass all that routine and ritual teaching part.

With the end of the first quarter comes ten wonderful (and much needed!) days off from school! And the best part??? I have absolutely nothing planned for the entire week. Yes, I have my regular commitments for church and youth group, and last week our community groups started so I am now a part of that. But other than that I have been getting a lot of much needed rest (I was sick the last two days of school!) and catching up on "lifey" things like cleaning and paying bills. (oh the joy)

So what I am doing today, now that I am about half way through my break? I am sitting in a Starbucks (yes, we have Starbucks here... two as a matter of fact!) drinking my coconut latte in a real mug (not those paper kind) and enjoying the day with my friend Megan. If you were to ask me what my favorite thing to do is I would have to say just this. Hanging out and just being. So much of my life is "doing".... It is nice just to be!


Monday, September 20, 2010

Monday Night Bliss...

It is Monday night, and Monday night for me here in Kona is family night. Family night consists of me, my roommate Chrissy, great food, and the tv!
For dinner we made grilled brats (yes, on an actually bbq! It's legit or nothing at all!) with grilled onions and some pillsbury bisquits. Mmmm mmmm. And we enjoyed our food with a couple of glasses (very small glasses!) of Clos Du Bois merlot.
This is a very special night in the realm of our family night because this week all of our shows return for the new season. "How I Met Your Mother" returns tonight which we are super stoked for! And tonight is the premiere of "Hawaii Five-O"! We are totally excited for that!
Tonight is going to be a great night!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Back on the Net!

Aloha one and all! I have not forgotten about you! For the past month and a half I have been without internet, but as of today I am officially back online! Yay!

I have had 29 days of school so far and we are only a couple quick weeks away from the end of the first quarter! Yikes! I am loving teaching first grade and I absolutely love having my same students from last year. I have five additional students this year and they are all great, super smart and very well behaved!

I get to teach social studies in first grade, which has been great so far. We celebrated statehood day in August and this month we are studying Johnny Appleseed. His birthday is on September 26th, which we will celebrate in class, so if anyone has any ideas on activities I could do, let me know!