Printable Cranberry Granola Crunch Recipe

Ask and you shall receive...

I've had several people ask me if I had this recipe in a printable version, so here you are! lol :)

Cranberry Granola Crunch

¼ cup vegetable oil

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup honey

½ tsp. cinnamon

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup almonds, chopped

¼ cup ground flax seed

¼ cup sunflower seeds

1 cup dried cranberries

Directions:

1. Heat oil, brown sugar and honey in a saucepan over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Stir in cinnamon.
2. In a large bowl, combine rolled oats, almonds, flax and sunflower seeds. Add oil mixture & stir well.
3. Spread in a shallow 9” x 13” parchment-lined baking dish. Bake 20 minutes in a preheated 350 degree F oven. Stir in cranberries and bake 10-12 minutes longer, until lightly browned. Mixture will firm up as it cools. Break into chunks.

Makes 10 cups. For a yummy dessert option, use as a topping over ice-cream or frozen yogurt. I love this with layered in a cup with vanilla yogurt and fresh berries. Yummy!

Enjoy and thanks for stoppin' by! :)

Cranberry Granola Crunch

I found another very yummy recipe that I had to share. A friend of mine asked for the recipe, so I thought I'd use my recipe card stamps to make a copy for her. I got this recipe out of this months copy of Reader's Digest magazine (a Canadian publication). We're big fans of granola here in our house, as you can see from the recent granola bar recipe, as well. Granola is so yummy on ice-cream or frozen yogurt or the best layered in a cup with vanilla yogurt and fresh fruit. Yummy! :)

Here's the recipe directions.
This is what the granola looks like when it's all cooled and broken up into chunks.
I'll be back later tonight with something crafty to show you. I've been busy lately tidying and organizing my house. Jim came home today and said "Jules, the house looks really nice, you're not nesting. are you?" To which I immediately said, "Bite your tongue!" You see, we're supposed to be done having kids! lol :) I'm really just trying to rid myself of my pack-rat ways. To be truthful, I quite proud of myself. I'm throwing away stuff that I've been keeping around for years. I guess it's about time and I do agree the place looks better now. lol :)

Time to go have supper, thanks for stoppin' by! :)

Homemade Granola Fruit Bars

I saw this recipe yesterday and it's just what I've been looking for. I've been wanting to make my own granola bars for some time now as I'm not overly happy with having to buy them all the time from the grocery store, along with the fact that they're so full of sugar. I tried making these last night and I must say they're a winner! Oh my goodness, delish! I just had to share! Thanks so much to Jennifer for sharing her recipe! :)

I packaged the granola bars up in little ziploc snack bags. This is only part of them, the recipe actually made 21 bars.

Homemade Granola Fruit Bars

Add the following to a 11” x 13” cookie sheet (with sides):

2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup Wheat Germ (for protein) or Natural Wheat Bran (for fibre)
1 cup slivered almonds, roughly chopped

Mix them a bit, right in the tray (why dirty another bowl?!)
Toast in a 400 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. STIR often (every TWO MINUTES... or it'll burn on you!)
Meanwhile... grab a pot and add the following:

2/3 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Honey
4 Tbsp. Butter (which is 1/4 cup)
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. Salt

Bring this to a simmer, stirring constantly.
Prepare an 11x13 (9x13 would work just fine!) pan, line with wax paper & spray lightly with non-stick spray. DO this. I didn't the second time I made these, forgot, and that wax paper was ripping to get off... spray helped a ton!!

Now, you may add some dry fruit to it raisins, Craisins (dried cranberries) & chopped apricots - about a cup. Then, add 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds and 1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds. (If you prefer, you may use 1 cup of sunflower seeds and omit the pumpkin seeds.)

STIR IT ALL together until it's really well mixed. Dump it into your prepared pan. Grab some wax paper for the top (to keep your hands clean) and press it down into the pan. Let it sit for 2-3 hours before lifting it out and cutting it into bars. I also wrap them individually so they're handy to grab when we're on the run, or else all ready for school lunches :)

I was actually so determined to make this last night that I braved a blizzard yesterday with my hubby and kids to walk over to the store. We figured that we'd leave the car home and walk over as it's normally only about a 20 minute walk through the walking trails. We brought the sled to pull the kids with and they had so much fun. I must say though, that the weather was a little less than to be desired! Our 'little' trip ended up taking us 2 hours! We were cold and our legs sure were tired when we got home from walking through all that snow. Oh well, we all fared fine and the kids had fun so that's all that counts, right? lol :)

Thanks for stoppin' by! :)

2009/2010 Pocket Day Planner

Seeing as how we're now into a new year, I needed a new day planner to keep track of my work schedule and appointments. So, I picked up a pocket day planner from the Dollarama and altered it to be more my style as it was a rather boring cover. A chose to go with a simple design, as I didn't want to cover up very much of this gorgeous patterned paper by Bo Bunny. I absolutely love their papers! I also like this saying from IO a lot and thought it'd be nice to look at on a regular basis.

Well, we had a busy day of running around today and I'm rather tired. It's nearly midnight, so I think I'll call it a day. I'm gonna try to get in some crafty time tomorrow before I head to work for the evening, but, if not I'll be back on Sunday with something new to show you.

Thanks for stoppin' by! :)

Supplies:
Stamps: Something of the Marvelous (Impression Obsession), Butterfly (Anita's - Sugarloaf Inc.)
Cardstock: Purely Pomegranate (SU), White (Staples)
Patterned Paper: Beau Jardin Blush (Bo Bunny)
Tools: Cuttlebug, Circle and Scalloped Circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders), 2 Year Pocket Day Planner (Dollarama), Double-sided Tape, Scissors

QKD Blog Candy Alert

I've been checking out the stamps by Queen Kat Designs for a while now, but their new Flutterby stamp is what really caught my eye! Humm, can you guess what it is...of course, it's a butterfly. QKD is offering up a surprise pack of blog candy right now for those who leave a comment on their blog here, follow their blog and leave a post on your own blog re the contest. They also have their sweet new butterfly stamp on sale this week...can we guess who's ordering it? lol :) Here are some samples that they did with it. Isn't she one of the prettiest butterflies you've ever seen?

Thanks for stoppin' by! :)

Lots of Butterflies and Bling

I played for a bit this morning and thought I'd break in a set of butterfly stamps that I got quite some time ago and hadn't inked up yet...imagine, butterfly stamps in my house that haven't seen ink! It's almost a sin! lol :)

This is a close up of the extra vellum butterfly that I cut out and added to add a bit of dimension to the card.

Well, I was supposed to go to work tonight, but we've been getting freezing rain here all afternoon and it's pretty messy outside. So, I called into work earlier and they said they figured it would be a pretty slow night, so I was ok to take the night off. I'm glad about that as I don't mind driving on snowy roads, but freezing rain is a different story. Our street is like a skating rink so I'll be staying put. Waiting for the announcement of school cancellations in the morning...

Thanks for stoppin' by! :)

Supplies:
Stamps: Sentiments I (Impression Obsession), Flourish - C95182 (Magenta), Patterned Bugs (Inkadinkado)
Cardstock: Pink Pirouette (SU), Chocolate Brown (CRS), Ivory (Staples) Vellum Cardstock (SU)
Ink: Vintage Sepia (VersaFine)
Tools: Scallop Border Punch (SU), Sponge (SU), Scissors
Embellishments: Pink Bling, Chocolate Brown Satin Ribbon (Michaels)

2 Year Blogiversary Blog Candy

Happy Blogiversary to me, Happy Blogiversary to me, Happy Blogiversary to Julie, Happy Blogiversary to me! lol :)

I thought I'd get a few things together to give away to celebrate my 2 year Blogiversary at the end of the month. It seems like just the other day that I started blogging, where have the past two years gone? I'm so glad that I took the plunge and started one, I've met some great friends through blogging and by sharing my stamping obsession. Stampers really are the nicest people! I really appreciate you all stopping by to visit my blog and to those of you who leave such nice comments, it really makes my day. Thanks for that! :)

So, in order to enter, just leave me a comment and let me know what you'd like to see more of on my blog and what you'd like to see change. I know I haven't been posting many projects lately, but I hope that will change now that the holidays are behind us and things are getting back to somewhat of a normal state.

I'll draw a winner using Random.org on the morning of Monday, Jan. 19th, 2009.

Good luck and thanks for stoppin' by! :)