How to Make Granola

Granola is a fabulous breakfast food and snack our family enjoys a lot. Making granola is incredibly easy and is a great way to get children interested in cooking. The basic ingredients for granola are rolled oats, nuts, dried fruits and sweeteners. The girls decided to add puffed rice and bake-dried bananas. The little ones stirred the grain mixture and the big girls baked it until crispy.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers, but our family loves to eat. To satisfy our appetite between meals, we always have sweet or savory snack available in the kitchen. Granola makes a healthy and flavorful snack that everyone in the family enjoys. It’s packed with folic acid, which is especially beneficial for women. Plus, you can pack the granola in zip-top bags for your children's school snack or when you're on-the-go.

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Fresh Kyoho Grapes

Kyoho grapes [pronounced kee-oh-ho] are large, seeded, extremely sweet and juicy with meaty flesh. Like the Concord variety, this specialty grape is powdery and thick-skinned with a blackish purple color. I absolutely love Kyohos. There are several ways to eat them. You could peel them with a small paring knife because they are large enough but I think this method waste a lot of the precious juice inside. In my opinion, the best way to enjoy the fruit is to simply place a grape between your index finger and thumb, lean your head a little backward, gently squeeze the fruit until the flesh pushes through the skin, along with a generous amount of fragrant, sweet juice. Remove and discard the few seeds embedded in its flesh, and repeat.
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Fig Crumble Dessert (Fruit Crumble Recipe)

Making fig crumble is very simple. The ratio is very easy to memorize; just combine equal parts by weight of flour, sugar and butter. To enhance the fig flavors, I caramelized the figs in butter and sugar and mixed a little bit of fig compote at the bottom of each cup. I think crumbles are best eaten warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. I served them in individual small dessert cups for portion control, but I think it just tempts everyone into having seconds.

I was really excited to make this dessert, because all summer I've been waiting to use the figs from our garden. I try to wait until the fruits are ripe before harvesting them, but between the birds and the girls, there are almost none left on the trees. Today, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to grab a few figs for the crumble. I’ll try again in a couple of days, so stay tuned for another decadent fig dish!

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Indian Candies

Since I got married, I've discovered a lot of Indian dishes. My father-in-law (I call him Daddy) has introduced me to many new, exotic, Indian foods that were unfamiliar to my palate. Today, Daddy had me try a new Indian confection. When I tasted it, it immediately reminded me of the Vietnamese equivalent called kẹo mè xửng Huế, except that the candies contain rose water, whole cardamom pods, dates, poppy seeds, pistachio, cashew nut and almond.
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Almond Pudding Recipe

Almond pudding is not your average dessert. I came up with the recipe in an effort to make good use of the Tamarin speculoos spread I recently received and some left-over almond flour I ground after making frangipane apple tartlets.

To make the dessert, I mixed black sesame powder with almond milk. I used arrowroot starch as a thickener and added speculoos spread and agave nectar as the sweeteners.  Arrowroot is a neutral ingredient and is very easy to digest.

It makes a great dessert, but my husband Lulu also loves it as breakfast (I thin it with more almond milk) or as a late-night snack. As an added bonus, this dessert is eggless, dairy fee and gluten free.

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