As Goddess is my witness I will never buy granola again!

Well, I can't believe it took a pandemic for me to make this simplest of recipes. I frankly was always in awe of people who made their own granola (or granilla as it is called in our house) but now I know my fascination was unwarranted. I don't know why I expected this would be some big kitchen-based project. We ran out of our store-bought granola this morning, so I did have some motivation to get on with this but honestly, it was so easy I'm embarrassed that I never made this myself before. It took less than 30 minutes to gather the ingredients (all of which were already in my pantry), mix them, and bake. I used this recipe from Cookie and Kate which calls for oats, sea salt, coconut or olive oil, nuts and/or seeds, cinnamon, maple syrup or honey, vanilla extract and optional fruits or chocolate chips. I opted out of the last two, used honey rather than maple syrup, and used chopped walnuts. I also used the last of our blood-orange infused olive oil from L.O.V.E.  Good thing they have shipping to anywhere in the U.S. This is super tasty, and not too sweet. I think next time I will use a higher ratio of nuts though.

This can easily be made vegan by using maple syrup rather than honey.

Mint Chocolate Chip Glazed Popcorn

I love the color combination of light green and brown. Ever since I first saw a house painted with this fun mix I have always wanted to live in a "mint chocolate chip" house. A few years ago when we did a small renovation on our house and added a half bath and I was able to at least have it painted in my dream colors, but it wasn't the same as having a whole house with the hues I sought. This summer when we bought our beach house (aka "whaling house") James suggested that I could finally realize my dream. And so it came to fruition.

Last week I found this recipe when I Googled "healthy popcorn recipes" and I knew it would be the right thing to try at our whaling house. It takes a bit longer than standard salt and butter popcorn, but with about 20 minutes more time you can have a much superior snack. This wasn't too sweet even though it used both chocolate chips and honey and it has a wonderful melt-in-your-mouth quality. James immediately dubbed it the "official snack of whaling house".