Adventures in Nutty Granola

A few weeks ago, M and I went up to Southern Vermont for Family Work Day for the Jenckes Foundation. Family Work Day is filled with trail work aka lopping, chainsawing, hacking and stacking. We spent most of the day removing fallen trees from the ski trails in the form of chucking 60lb logs into the woods.

We started the morning at M2's house with a delicious granola breakfast care of my Mama. I broke my "no grains" rule to indulge in some coconutty, oaty granola from Healthy Living, an amazing health food store up in Northern VT. Mostly, I broke my rule so that I could have some of my mom's homemade fruit compote, which is soon to be replicated, but the granola was phenomenal.

Since tasting the forbidden granola, I've wanted to try and make my own. I found a guide on Girl Gone Primal and modified it a bit to make my own, nutty granola.

Nutty Granola

Ingredients:
Almonds
Cashews
Walnuts
Unsweetened shredded coconut
3 Tbs maple syrup
5 egg whites

I put all of the nuts into a bowl to soak for a few hours.

Chester was curious. I'm not sure of my exact nut measurements: I used an entire bag of raw almonds from Trader Joe's, half a bag of raw cashews and 1/2 cup walnuts.(This recipe can be modified for any amount of nuts: you just have to change the number of egg whites and maple syrup.)

I soaked the nuts for about three hours-- until they had soaked up almost all of the water in the bowl and looked nice and soft.

I ground the nuts cup by cup in the food processor,

and whisked the maple syrup and egg whites in a separate bowl.

I combined the nut and egg white mixtures, making sure that all of the nuts were covered in egg.

After lining a baking sheet with parchment paper, I spread out a 1/2 inch layer of the mixture. I baked the nutola for about 10 minutes at 350, stirred (or flipped) and then continued to bake for another 10 minutes.

I completed this flipping/stirring step a few more times before the nuts were browned and toasted looking.

Once the nuts were done baking, I added the coconut flakes.

I attempted to shake the nuts and coconut together in a plastic bag. However, we are cheap, so our plastic bags are ghetto and don't seal very well (and I'm a gross kid), so there was a granola explosion.

I managed to salvage most of the goods and we ate them with almond milk, blueberries and some demon peanut butter for our Sunday Breakfeast. Needless to say, I'm all nutted out-- I can't even think about nut butter without longing for some cold, crisp vegetables. The granola is great though, and I'm going to attempt to make some fruit compote in the next week or so-- it needs some fruit to lighten it up-- all of those nuts just go straight to my chins!

Buffalo 'n Beets

One of my favorite "in moderation" foods is buffalo chicken. M makes a pretty meal grilled buffalo wing--which I adore--but my heart lies with the greasy fried goodness of buffalo chicken tenders. Every now and then I will convince M to add them on to our take-out order (I pretty much try every time we order Italian takeout, but M has this Jedi mind trick to get me to not want them anymore) and I bask in the bready, fried, blue-cheesy glory that are buffalo tenders.

In an effort to healthfully satisfy my buffalo craving, I decided to make baked buffalo chicken tenders:

Gluten-Free Baked Buffalo Chicken Tenders
(sheesh...what a name!)

Ingredients:

• Chicken tenderloins (or a chicken breast sliced into tenders)
• Almond meal (I used the Trader Joe's variety)
• Franks Red Hot
• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
  

• Blue cheese dressing for dipping

I started by rolling each tender in almond flour (frowny face unintended)

After spraying both sides of each tender with olive oil, I placed them on a baking sheet. Then I placed them in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes on each side. It was about 90 degrees in Boston last night, and about 120 degrees in our kitchen...

In the meantime, I poured some of our gigantic container of Frank's Red Hot into a frying pan along with about 1Tbsp of butter over medium heat

When the tenders were finished baking, I coated each of them with the buffalo sauce

Voila: Gluten-Free Baked Buffalo Chicken Tenders

To go with our chickens, I decided to make a beet salad using beets I picked up at the Copley Farmer's Market.

I cut off the beet greens to save for another day

Then washed and wrapped each beet in aluminum foil and placed in the oven at 450 for about 30 minutes.

While the beets were roasting, I put together a salad of mixed greens, goat cheese, walnuts and blueberries

Once the beets were done, I rinsed them in cold water. The skin comes off easily in cold water after roasting--all you have to do is gently rub the beets.

Voila: Beet Salad

I was so excited that the beets worked out! They were a great way to spice up a salad that we make fairly often. Plus, beets are in season in Massachusetts right now! We needed a nice, cold salad to offset the spicy hotness of the buffalo tenders: it was, in my opinion, the perfect summer salad.

Before You Go Nuts...

I came across an article in the New York Times today about a new nutritional study stating that eating about two ounces of nuts a day can lower your cholesterol. The study looked at data from 25 preexisting nut consumption trials that involved 583 men and women from 7 countries with normal and elevated blood cholesterol levels. A analysis of the pooled data revealed that eating 67g (2.4 oz) of nuts a day could significantly lower one's cholesterol.

Don't get me wrong, I think nuts are great. I eat them everyday (mostly almonds). Nuts are full of good fats and have a fair amount of plant-based protein. They are, however, very calorie and nutrient dense. A serving of nuts is typically one ounce, which is usually characterized as "one handful." One serving of almonds has about 160 calories and 14g of fat, while one serving of walnuts as about 200 calories and 18g of fat. According to this study, you should be eating almost two and a half servings of nuts a day if you want to lower your cholesterol-- If you chose walnuts, this would mean an additional 500 calories and 45g of fat per day. Most diets, such as The South Beach Diet, and even the Primal Blueprint recommend eating no more than one serving of nuts per day.

I am not a medical professional, nor do I want to sound preachy... but before you go nuts with the nuts, maybe consider some other ways to lower your cholesterol...like taking a look at your red meat consumption, and maybe increasing whole grains. I love almonds and pecans and walnuts-- I eat about an ounce pretty much every day (I might be a little too addicted to almond butter for my own good), but I know that if I were to eat two servings a day, my waistline would most definitely increase. Definitely eat nuts, but maybe consume them in moderation...everyday...just a little bit...