making strides

Remember this breakfast of champions?

Well, I must say that this morning's breakfast definitely beat that.

Homemade granola, milk, and bananas perched on top. Holy moly. This was good!

I wish I could tell you the recipe, but to be honest, I don't even know what it is. After a failed/burned first batch, I decided to do a little experimenting and did my own little rendition of this and this. I can tell you what was in it that made it the pure deliciousness that it is:

• rolled oats (~2 1/2 cups),
• puffed rice (~1/2 cup),
• wheat germ (1/3 cup),
• groud flax seed (~1/4 cup maybe),
• sunflower seeds (a couple tablespoons? sure, that sounds good),
• chopped peanuts and almonds (again, a couple tablespoons of each),
• natural peanut butter (no, jif will simply not do here),
• a sprinkling of brown sugar,
• honey (~1/2 cup),
• a little bit of vanilla,
• and a tablespoon or two of oil.

I spread everything out on two baking dishes lined with parchment paper (my cookie sheets just weren't cutting it- hence the burned first batch) and cooked for about 20 minutes until golden brown, stirring every 5 minutes or so.

I'm normally SO not like this when it comes to cooking. I'm a follow-the-recipe-to-a-T kind of girl. Not sure what came over me last night, but whatever it was worked. This will definitely be a staple in our house.

This satisfied my cold cereal obsession in a much more nutritious way.

{the best part is, you can experiment with putting all sorts of things in it: dried fruit, maple syrup, the possibilities are endless}