Toasted Granola

This is my grandmother's recipe. It is time consuming, but SO worth it!

7 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey*
1/2 stick butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 teaspoon of salt (optional)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries

Oven: 325
Serving Size: 1/2 cup**

If you are using almonds, lay those on a pan and let them toast lightly while you measure out the rest of the ingredients. It only takes 2-3 minutes to toast them, so watch them carefully so they don't burn!

Put the oats in a bowl, and in a small saucepan stir and heat (do NOT boil!) the water with brown sugar and salt until they dissolve. Add oil, honey and butter. Continue heating until the butter is melted, but do not let it boil. Remove from heat and add vanilla flavoring. Pour the mixture over the oats, and mix until the liquid is absorbed.

Bake the mixture until lightly toasted, stirring every 4-5 minutes pressing out lumps as they form. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to toast the granola, stirring every 4-5 minutes. It is a pain, I will admit that! But this granola is really good, and healthy. Once the mixture is lightly toasted, turn off the oven, and make sure all the lumps are pressed out.

When the granola is dry and no longer hot, add the raisins and almonds. Store in an air-tight container. I keep my container stored in the freezer, but it will also keep in your cabinet (I am not sure how long it will stay fresh, so keep an eye on it if you don't freeze this!)

I enjoy this for breakfast with rice milk, or regular milk. My grandparents eat this almost every morning, and they eat a banana with it. Enjoy!

*measure the oil first, so the honey will just slide right out of the measuring cup!
**It doesn't look like much, but 1/2 cup is really filling!

Sleeping Healthy

I just found this website this morning that tells you when you should go to sleep. Because we sleep in cycles, so for example for me, I should go to sleep at 10, or 11:30 since I get up at 7. Not getting in bed at 10 or 11:30, but actually asleep. If you wake up during a cycle, you feel groggy and tired, but if you sleep through a cycle, then you feel more rested. I am going to try this out tonight!

Here is the link, I think this is definitely something worth looking into! Especially if you are constantly tired. If you have insomnia, like me, I will post soon about how to beat insomnia!

Mary Kay

I am selling MaryKay now! Just send me an e-mail if you would be interested in buying anything! I will have more information later!

Live Life Now!

Here are two great blog posts from chegg. Chegg sells books, and they also have a blog that I read sometimes. They are on facebook. Here are two posts from them that I LOVE!

Take Back Your 20's:
http://blog.chegg.com/2013/02/12/9-ways-to-take-back-your-20s/

Things to Stop Doing in Your 20's:
http://blog.chegg.com/2013/04/02/19-things-to-stop-doing-in-your-20s/

Yoga

I never really looked much into yoga until recently. It just wasn't my thing. But suddenly I was seeing yoga everywhere, yoga is supposed to help if you are stressed or have migraines (I have both), and yoga is in 27 Dresses, and the Wedding Planner (I kind of want Judy Greer to be my best friend, she's awesome!) and there is free yoga at school. Yoga was just everywhere. So I figured I would give it a try.

I did not feel comfortable going to a yoga class at school. Plus, the classes and my schedule did not like each other. I looked online, and found some yoga videos on youtube. Esther Ekhart is the yoga teacher. The video is titled "Yoga for Beginners" and I really enjoyed this. She has several videos, I usually just do the first and second video. If I have time, I will do the third. But these are really great videos if you have NO idea what you are doing, like me! Esther is very easy to understand, she shows you how to do everything, and its definitely relaxing!

I also mix a little physical therapy stretches in with this yoga. I do a little stretching before, and some neck stretches afterwards. I try to do yoga three times a week. I am not quite in the routine of doing yoga every week, but I am getting there! Once or twice a week I will add some crunches into the mix!

Yoga, I can say from experience, is helpful if you are stressed, or get migraines a lot. I know that there are many more things yoga is helpful for. If you are tense, or have tight muscles and need to stretch your body out a bit, yoga is perfect. It is exercise, stretching, and good for your respiratory system. So check some yoga out! Get involved in a class near you, and do it your way, if you want to get comfortable in your own home first, then do that! If you want to jump right into a class, go right ahead!

Macaroni and Cheese for One

I hate leftovers. I usually eat them, but I just hate having leftover food in my refrigerator, I am one person, if I need a meal, I cook something fresh, it just makes my life simpler. I like macaroni and cheese (with chicken nuggets!), but making a whole box just drove me crazy. So I measured everything out to figure out how to make only a half a box at a time! This recipe is using the Kraft brand macaroni and cheese 7.25 oz box.

1/2 cup of noodles*
1/8 cup or 2 1/2 tablespoons cheesy powder**
2 TBSP butter
1/8 cup milk

Boil the noodles, and drain them. Melt the butter in the noodles, add milk and cheesy powder, stir well.

So there you have it! Simple, yet easy! I love macaroni with chicken nuggets. I cook anywhere from four to eight nuggets (depending on how hungry I am) in the microwave for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Happy eating!

*There is a little more than 1 cup of noodles per box, so make sure that this 1/2 cup of noodles is a little overflowing.
**The powder is a little less than 1/4 cup, so if you use the 1/8 cup then make sure its not quite full.

Teatime

Celestial Seasonings has the most amazing tea! Its called Tension Tamer, it has a blend of ginger, chamomile, peppermint and lemon. I think those sound like a really weird mix, but this tea is incredibly good! It does tend to be a bit strong though, so I don't let it steep as long as I would for other teas. I also don't use sugar, I use a bit of honey in this!

Aside from Tension Tamer, Celestial Seasonings has some really incredible tea mixtures. They have a sleepytime mix with vitamin c, zinc, elderberry and echinancea. Also a sore throat tea with chamomile, spearmint, licorice root, slippery elm bark (which sounds absolutely awful! It is good for your throat though!), lemongrass and ginger.

You can get coupons on their website if you have the ability to print coupons. They also send out coupons every few weeks in the Sunday paper if you get that. Their teas are definitely worth buying!