Everywhere I turn, there’s an article in a magazine or a news report telling us to eat more Omega-3 fatty acids. My two-person household has been doing our part for a while with foods like wild salmon and walnuts. But every report touts the extra super goodness of flax seeds and I hadn’t really gotten around to eating them yet. Fortunately for me, I stumbled upon a picture of this granola on Slashfood’s Feast Your Eyes page the other day and I’ve now jumped on the flax seed bandwagon.

Admittedly, it was the maple syrup that sold me on it. I’m a sucker for recipes containing maple syrup and I just so happen to have nearly a gallon of delicious grade B syrup taking up a lot of valuable refrigerator real estate…so maple granola seemed like a good idea.

The original recipe didn’t contain the walnuts or dried cranberries that I added to mine but that recipe did mention that other seeds, dried fruit and nuts were all very acceptable add-ins. I also added a bit more salt than the original recipe used as I really love to eat things that have a mixture of salty and sweet. If you’re not such a fan of salty and sweet together, reduce the salt to just 1/4 teaspoon. If you don’t like walnuts or dried cranberries, leave them out or add something else in their place.

Maple Granola

Slightly adapted from recipe at Sweet Beet and Green Bean

Ingredients

• 2 2/3  cups rolled oats
• 2/3 cup flax seeds
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2/3 cup maple syrup (I used grade B)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to lowest setting (200 degrees Fahrenheit for my oven). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In food processor or blender, process 1/3 cup oats and 1/3 cup flax seed until the mixture is a fine powder.
3. In large bowl, stir together oats and flax seed powder, remaining 2 1/3 cups rolled oats, remaining 1/3 cup flax seeds, dried cranberries, walnuts and salt.
4. Drizzle olive oil over mixture and stir together until olive oil is evenly distributed.
5. Add maple syrup to mixture and stir again until maple syrup is evenly distributed.
6. Evenly spread granola on prepared baking sheet and bake for about an hour. If the granola doesn’t seem quite crunchy enough at this point, bake it a little more.
7. Let cool to room temperature on baking sheet. At this stage, you can break it into large or small pieces (your preference). Store in airtight container at room temperature.

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I’m a little light on photo and blog content lately. This is because I’m in the midst of a self-imposed baking hiatus. Summer is approaching and I must admit that I indulged in a few too many treats during the long, cold and miserable months of winter. So I’m attempting to undo a little of the damage from all of the cakes, cookies and rolls. Don’t worry too much. The baking hiatus is temporary. It won’t turn into a long sabbatical. I won’t retire. I like baking too much.

On to the cake…

I’m not a big fan of spice cake. Or at least I wasn’t until I was introduced to this cake last fall. The boyfriend’s boss made it for his birthday. Whenever there’s a birthday in his office, someone is in charge of bringing cake (or dessert). Quite often the baking job has fallen on me….despite the fact that I don’t work there.

When the boyfriend’s birthday rolled around last year, his boss was responsible for the cake. Apparently she felt that it had to be great since he gets my desserts at home all the time and she knows how tasty some of them have been. Needless to say she did a great job choosing the cake and baking it!

He brought the leftovers home and I pretty much gorged myself on it for the next couple of days. I even ate this cake for breakfast. Not that there’s anything wrong with eating cake for breakfast. Especially when the cake has nutritious ingredients like apples and walnuts.

The recipe for the cake can be found on the Food Network website. It’s a Gale Gand recipe called Stella’s Stellar Apple Spice Cake. Stellar isn’t nearly a generous enough word for this cake.

It’s an apple spice cake with lots of walnuts and golden raisins. I don’t really like most spice cakes but this one I love. I also don’t adore raisins…but the golden raisins more than okay in this cake. The apple pieces are relatively large and give the cake a nice texture.

The cake itself is kind of like a spice cake brownie. It has a crunchy top and a soft interior like a good brownie should. But no chocolate. That would be weird.

The recipe calls for a glaze over the cake. The boyfriend’s boss didn’t make the glaze and neither did I . The cake doesn’t need it. Other than skipping the glaze, I didn’t make any changes to the recipe.

Just in case you didn’t click one of the other links, the recipe is here.

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These are sweet & spicy walnuts. I make them at least once a week and they serve as both a snack and a salad topping. The boyfriend frequently asks me to make them for him to eat on a salad (note: his salad consists solely of lettuce and these walnuts). More often than not, he won’t ever get around to eating them with lettuce…instead he’ll eat them straight out of the Tupperware container. We don’t keep a lot of pre-packaged store bought snack food around the house so I guess I can’t fault him for it.

The boyfriend loves walnuts. Other nuts are okay but the walnut is his clear favorite. When we first started dating, we lived in apartments across the hall from each other. I learned of his love of walnuts pretty early in our relationship and I quickly learned that I would have to hide the walnuts in my pantry from him. If he knew I had them and/or he could find them, he would eat them. All of them. If I hadn’t learn to hide them, I probably would have spent $30 a month on walnuts.

Now we live together and share the cost of walnuts (and other groceries). I no longer hide the walnuts from him…I simply diligently buy more whenever we run low. He’s worth the extra expense.

The recipe below is a general idea of how to make these. Tweak the recipe to your own personal tastes. More spice, less sugar. Or vice versa. Or add entirely different spices to the bag. Heck, you could even (gasp!) use another nut instead of the walnuts. Do what you want with these…they’ll probably be delicious.

Sweet & Spicy Walnuts

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups walnuts (halves or pieces or both)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Paul Prudhomme’s Blackened Redfish Magic (or another blackening spice mix)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet or baking pan with aluminum foil.

2. Add walnuts and all other ingredients to a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. Seal the bag and shake everything together until thoroughly mixed. This should only take a minute or two.

3. Dump seasoned walnuts onto foil-lined baking sheet, spread them out and bake for approximately 5-7 minutes. The walnuts should be lightly browned.

4. Cool on baking sheet and store in airtight container. If you want them to last more than a day or two, keep them well hidden from the walnut crazed member of your household.

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