Car Rant, Granola Recipe and General Random Ramblings

We bought a new car a couple weeks ago. New to us that is. A beautiful red Nissan Sentra. Absolutely perfect. Until we brought it home...and parked it in our driveway. A bird decided to build a nest on the branch above the car. You can imagine how disgusting the car is in the mornings. (one of the babies fell out of the nest on top of it too! Survived...shockingly.) But that was nothing compared to today...while shopping at Aldi an artistic person decorated my car with lovely zigzags.

This is the smaller scratch. The larger one is all curlicues...

See? Not even possibly an accident. I really hate people today. DIE! Ok, that's out of my system. Ish. Anyone know of an inexpensive way to fix car paint scratches? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

The reason I was at Aldi is irritating. Apparently I have very high cholesterol. (I'm 26! and basically vegan) My doctor is actually blaming my vegan diet (mostly beans as protein) and I've been ordered to eat more chicken and fish. If I wanted to eat chicken and fish, I'd have been doing it...and guess what? My stomach hurts more the last few days eating chicken than it did when I wasn't eating it. Anyway...I went to Aldi to buy oatmeal to make granola. Oatmeal lowers cholesterol. I hate oatmeal. And then my car was scratched while I was getting it. Today sucks.

The granola smells amazing though!!! Because I love you and it's been a long while since I shared a new recipe, here is my granola recipe.

Granola

5 cups old fashioned gluten free oats (Bob's Red Mill is good)

1 ½ cups sliced almonds

½ cup chopped pecans

1 ½ cup shredded coconut (sweet or un-sweet--your preference)

½ cup packed light brown sugar

½ tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. ground nutmeg

½ cup olive oil

½ cup honey

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 ½ cups dried cranberries (or preferred dried fruit)

                Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients (EXCEPT the dried fruit). In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the oil and honey until not quite boiling, turn off heat then stir in the vanilla extract. Quickly pour the oil mixture over the dry ingredients and stir well. Spread the granola on a 15x10 pan with sides. Bake for 30-40 minutes, carefully stirring every 10 minutes. Bake it until light brown in color then remove from oven. Cool completely before adding the dried fruit. Gently stir to break up the largest chunks. Store in an air-tight container.

You're welcome.

Yesterday while watching Fringe (I'm obsessed. Can't stop watching.) I painted my fingernails. That rarely happens because I neither have time nor patience to do it. But it was a lazy rainy day. If you've seen Fringe, you also know that sometimes one needs a break from the weirdness anyway.

Aren't they pretty?



Another new (or rather re-discovered) obsession is Dido. My husband was sweet and bought me her new CD. I've not listened to anything since. Unless it was her "Life for Rent" CD. =) I even listen to the Dido radio station on Pandora. She has a gorgeous voice. Her songs are sad though...not sure why I like her so much actually. Hmmm...

Nothing is happening really... Another senior class is graduating Saturday, among them a good friend of mine. She's headed to The King's College in the Fall. (I heartily approve ;-)) My daughter has her kindergarten graduation this week as well. It seems just last week I posted that picture of her first day. Where does time go? I'm not ready for a first grader. Or the Summer. At least there are no school uniforms to keep track of when school is out!

I think my granola is burning. Goodbye