Like you, I’ve tasted many granolas over the years. Hands down, this is still, by far, the best.

People ask me if it’s healthy. After all, the term granola-head refers to someone who shops at health food markets populated by bins and bins of various granola flavors.

I prefer to answer it is “wholesome” instead of healthy. Why? Because it is loaded with sugar and nuts, albeit mostly natural sugar (brown sugar, maple syrup and honey) and heart healthy fats from three kinds of nuts.

I’ve never had the guts to run it through a calorie counter, though. I prefer just to eat and enjoy it without knowing exactly how many extra calories I’ve added to my low-fat yogurt.

Here’s the original post and the recipe. Make a batch and tell me if you think it’s the best tasting granola you’ve ever tasted.

I know it will be one of the most expensive ones you’ve ever tasted. But you’re worth it.

World’s Most Expensive Granola

Tags: granola
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I almost feel ridiculous writing about how to grill bread. I mean, what could be easier?

But then I got an email and someone asked me how to grill bread, and I realized that what seems like a no-brainer to me may be completely foreign to someone else.

And frankly, I wasn’t born knowing how to grill bread; someone taught me. Now I’m teaching you.

So, here’s how you grill bread. Ridiculously simple. Incredibly delicious.

First, pick out the kind of bread you want to grill. I used a seeded baguette for this shot, but you can literally grill any bread.

Oh, make sure the grill is preheated to medium (350 degrees) before you start. If I’m grilling dinner, I do the bread at the very end, after grilling everything else. The bread doesn’t take long and cools quickly.

Slice the bread about 3/4 of an inch thick, a little bit at an angle, giving more bread surface. You could cut them straight up perpendicular if you want.

Place the cut bread on a sheet pan. Brush with some kind of fat. You could use olive oil, vegetable oil or soft or melted butter.

Heck, you could even use melted bacon fat. (Have you noticed the crazy bacon mania going on right now? There are even bacon blogs — speaking of which, this one is making a stop in Phoenix this coming Sunday, details on the site.)

Anyhoo, back to the bread grilling, I’m hungry.

You could brush both sides of the bread with fat, but I only brush one side. Place the fat smeared side down on the hot grill. Wait a minute, maybe two or three if the grill isn’t too hot, and ta-da! Grilled bread! See? Simple.

(You can turn the bread and grill the other side for a minute if you’d like, but I don’t. No reason, I just don’t. OK, I do have a reason. I like the crunch from the grilled side and the softness of the underside, but that’s just me.)

Take the bread off the grill as soon as it is toasted to your liking and serve.

Tags: bacon, grilling bread
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We’ve seen this brown, bulbous root vegetable in our markets in the Southwest forever, yet without fail, someone in the grocery store will stop me and ask me what it is, followed by “what do you do with it?”

I use it as a paper weight. (Kidding).

Jicama, a staple in Mexican and South American cuisine can be eaten raw or lightly cooked. The flesh glistens pearly white.

It’s full of fiber and water, so it has a lovely crunch. My favorite way to serve jicama is as a component in a salad. It can be the star or a supporting cast member.

The first thing you have to do is peel the thin brown skin. I normally peel it before I cut it in half but I wanted you to see the inside first.

Once peeled, you can cut it any way you like. Cut it into matchsticks or cube it.

I made a jicama, orange and jalapeno side dish to go with barbecue, so I cubed it, added some orange sections and minced jalapeno.

Squeeze the orange after you remove all the sections over the jicama and then give it a good toss.

You could add a little olive oil for richness, but it’s fine to leave it fat free.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and you’ve got a refreshing, crunchy salad.

Tags: hot to peel jicama, jicama, jicama salad, recipe
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Sometimes you want to root for the home girl.

Last weekend, we went to the Phoenix farmers market (the one downtown). I’d heard that Chef John Sharpe from La Posada in Winslow, AZ (yes, same town the Eagles crooned something about standing on a corner) was going to be at the market with his new cookbook.

Dang, he had strep throat and couldn’t make it.

So we meandered the market anyway. The Tamale Store had printed a huge new banner that had the cover of the March PHOENIX Magazine, and my article about their utterly delicious tamales on full display at their booth. Yeah!, but I’m getting off track here.

Back to rooting for the home girl…I found the coolest candles from Skinny Girl Desserts. Cupcakes, tarts, quick breads…all in candle form (hence the skinny part)… I bought the berry blast (pictured above).

Of course, I’ll never get to burn it unless Jeff is out of town (he’s not a fan of scented candles, and this one is SO scented…might not ever have to buy air freshener again). Still, I thought the idea was so cute and clever. When I got home, I realized I didn’t pick up her business card, or any other information about her. I can’t find anything about her on Google either.

I guess I’ll have to go back to the market this weekend. And, it’s a great weekend to go the market because they’re going to make a big announcement as part of their 4th anniversary celebration. Think it has something to do with their new indoor market space. Go to the market this Saturday, and if you can’t make it, check back here. I’ll post about it next week.

Tags: candles, Skinny Girl Desserts
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Last weekend, there was a coupon in my Sunday paper for a new soup from Campbell’s under their V8 brand. I drink V8 juice (finally switch to the low sodium version, which was painful, but I have a little trick…I douse it with a sprinkling of cayenne powder).

But I digress… this post is about the new V8 soups. I bought three — southwestern corn, golden butternut squash and tomato herb. They also make a garden broccoli and sweet red pepper.

I completely adore the southwestern corn. The corn soup is thick, creamy and has a nice kick of heat. I topped it with some leftover popcorn and it really helped “pop” the corn flavor.

The tomato herb is also yummy. It, too, could use a little doctoring, and I found that a sprinkling of grated Parmesan really brought out the sweetness of the thick, red tomato base.

The butternut squash wasn’t as good. It tasted strange to me, so I looked at the ingredient list, and figured out the problem. Potatoes are the third ingredient in the squash soup, so it waters down the taste of the squash. Too bad, because butternut squash soup can be absolutely divine. I have a recipe for butternut squash soup in my cookbook, The Great Ranch Cookbook, with apples and chipotle. It is divine, but takes a bit of work.

It’s not nearly as easy as opening a carton of the V8 butternut squash soup, although figuring out how to open the V8 boxes is a bit of challenge. The boxes are small (16 oz.) and the nutritional content varies by soup, but 1 serving of the corn soup (8 oz) is 150 calories and 3 grams of fat, while the tomato soup is 90 calories and 0 fat grams for a cup.

The only downside is the amount of sodium, which also varies by soup (between 590 and 750 milligrams — 25% to 31% of the recommended daily allowance.) But you can find lots of other soups, even some made by Campbell’s, with as much as 890 mg and some as low as 60 mg (their low sodium cream of mushroom soup). The RDA is 2,400 mg. So the V8 soups are not outrageously laden with sodium.

I love soup, and soup season is upon us (some more than others…we’re still in the 80′s temperature range although nights and mornings are cooling off…finally). While I’d love to say that I have time to make a fresh batch of soup every week, I don’t. So I’ll keep a couple of these V8 soups in my pantry for those nights when nothing sounds better than a steaming bowl of soup.

Tags: Campbell's, corn, soup
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Seriously, how difficult can it be? I’m on the hunt for a new coffee machine. Our Krups coffee/esspresso machine is 16 years old, and has been telling us for a while now that she’s tired. Three years ago, we stayed in a bed and breakfast in Creede, Colorado and fell in love with the Saeco machine the proprietress had.

I searched for one when we returned home, but was overwhelmed at all the choices, so I did what any rational person would do. I quit searching, and basically ignored the issue. About a year ago, our little Krups started acting up again, so I went on the hunt again.

Jeff’s buddy Bob, a coffee connoisseur, told us about his favorite brand. Once again I was overwhelmed so, I pushed the thought out of my mind and coaxed the Krups back into service. (A little cleaning with water and vinegar does wonders.)

Now the Krups is doing something I don’t think I can fix — or ignore. It’s burning our coffee. On purpose, I think. So, I’m hunting again. And I’m overwhelmed again. Capresso, Miele, DeLonghi, Bosch, La Marzocco… what’s a girl to do?

Tags: coffee, espresso
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(courtesy of Brilliant Food Tips and Cooking Tricks by David Joachim (Rodale, Inc., 2001)

“The Italian word for cornmeal, polenta also refers to a dish made by cooking cornmeal in boiling water until it forms a soft mass. Polenta is served either soft, or cooled and cut into slices, which are then baked, grilled, or fried.

It’s interesting that polenta is considered Italian: After all, Italy got corn and cornmeal from the Americas, and polenta is really no different from American “mush.”

Tags: polenta
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