Chocolate Granola

Hmm... What to eat for breakfast...

Cereal? Boring.

Yogurt? Blah.

English muffin? Again?? No way.

I've got your solution in the form of crunchy, chocolatey, nutty goodness.

Feed your inner (and outer) hippie with this chocolate granola!

Ingredients:

3 cups rolled oats (quick oats)

1/2 cup of each of the following: pecans, dry roasted peanuts, shelled pistachios, cocoa almonds

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 cup extra light olive oil

1/4 cup honey

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Time commitment: 1hr 15min... But it's worth it!

Estimated cost: 15$

Yield: a LOT of granola

Preheat the oven to 250F. Chop all of the nuts to a medium-coarse chop and stir together with the rolled oats in a large bowl. Add in the brown sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon and stir to evenly coat the nuts and oats.

In a separate bowl, mix together the honey and olive oil. They don't really come together well, but this helps to distribute them both on the granola mix at the same time. Add the mixed honey and oil to the nuts and grains and stir to coat.

Dump the coated granola mixture onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet and spread the granola around into an even layer. Into the oven it goes!

Bake the granola for 40 minutes at 250F, then bump up the temp to 300F and bake for an additional 20 minutes. Be sure to turn the granola with a spatula every 20 minutes to avoid burning it!

At this point, you're realizing that an hour is a long time. As someone who's willing to take the time to make their own granola, I have a few suggestions as to how to pass the time:

(1) Do a second round of yoga. Lots of child's pose.

(2) Backcomb your dreadlocks.

(3) Repair your torn tie-dye shirts with peace sign patches.

(4) Watch "The Best of Burning Man" on DVD.

Hopefully you enjoyed doing all of those things! I know I did (not). Remove the granola from the oven and scrape it into a large bowl to cool. How good does that smell?

Spoon your favorite yogurt into a bowl and top it off with some chocolate granola. You could even put it on top of some strawberry mousse (wink wink nudge nudge). Or just eat it by the handful; a particularly attractive idea for those without spoons. Store excess cooled granola in a Ziploc bag to preserve its crunchiness.

Going on a hike because your significant other is way more active than you are and enjoys watching you suffer? No worries! Throw some chocolate chips and dried cranberries in that same Ziploc bag and you've got yourself some mighty fine trail mix. 

It won't make the hike easier, but keeping your mouth full will stop you from complaining too much (like I do)!

Happy Crafting!

Alcohol Infusions

WARNING: If you are younger than 21 years of age, stop reading now! Alcohol is gross and uncool. In other words, it's not trending. You won't like it!

If you are older than 21 years of age, have I got a craft for you!

If you've ever been to a speakeasy (or a place masquerading as a speakeasy), you know that infused alcohols are their bread and butter. One of them probably even has bread and butter infused whiskey. 

When you read the menu, it's elderflower liquor this, apple rum that. Then they mix these fancy alcohols with some other lofty ingredients and charge you 15$. 

Thanks bartender man. I'm sure this exorbitant price helps put the wax on that handlebar moustache of yours.

The good news is that once you spend most of your hard-earned money on fancy drinks, you only need a little bit more to replicate the experience at home, Craftertaste-style.

Keep your speaking as easy as your listening with alcohol infusions!

Ingredients

Alcohol of your choosing

Infusion material (fruit, seeds, whole spices, non-toxic flowers, teas, etc.)

Mason jar

Funnel

Coffee filters

Glass bottles with air-tight caps

(See below for recipe ideas)

Does this already seem like a bad idea? I suggest hitting the bottle, and then reading onward. Inhibitions: lowered.

The idea here is simple. Let your ingredients soak in the alcohol to release any water/alcohol-soluble flavorants inside the mason jar. Then pour the entire mixture into a coffee filter lined funnel (to separate out the non-drinkable components) and into a glass bottle for storage.

The key factors controlling how strong the infused flavor presents itself in the alcohol are (1) the amount of infusion ingredient, (2) exposed surface area of the infusion ingredient, and (3) the incubation time. Striking a balance between these factors can be somewhat challenging. But once you find that balance, you'll see it was well worth the trial and error.

Here are a few recipes I came up with after drinking the failed attempts:

Orange and Ginger Vodka

- Peel from 1/2 an orange, in long strips

- 5 slices of ginger root

- 1 cup Absolut vodka

- Stir ingredients in the mason jar and incubate

- Incubation time: 30 min

Fennel and Bay Leaf Whiskey

- 3 tbsp fennel seeds

- 2 bay leaves, crushed up

- 1 cup Maker's Mark whiskey

- Stir ingredients in the mason jar and incubate

- Incubation time: 30 min

Green Tea and Black Sesame Gin

- 1 tbsp loose leaf green tea

- 1 tbsp black sesame seeds

- 1 cup Bombay Sapphire gin

- Stir ingredients in the mason jar and incubate

- Incubation time: 15 min

I would recommend NOT doing shots with your prized creations. The flavors coming out of these alcohol infusions are fairly potent, and therefore would be better served (pun intended) in a mixed drink or cocktail.

You could probably store these infusions for a week or two in the sealed glass bottles in the fridge. I usually just make them fresh before a gathering though, scaling up the recipes above to party sized portions.

Try experimenting with different alcohol and flavor combinations until you get an infused alcohol all your own. Then invite me over so we can get wasted! WOOO!

Happy crafting!