Granola French Toast: A breakfast worth the wait

I know it's been a while, but my "52 new things" have basically fallen off the face of the planet. Blame it on grad school, I guess. I have been keeping up a little bit, but definitely not as well as I was before week 30ish. Maybe in the future I'll update that page with my new adventures since grad school.

In the meantime, I've got a fantastic new recipe to add to my home made chocolate granola experiment! It's Chocolate Granola French Toast, one of the most amazing breakfasts I've made in a while. Click the link for the recipe if you're curious, but it basically just entails making regular French toast and then dipping it in a thick cover of granola. Cook away as usual. Just be careful not to burn the face of the bread...

Here is how the French toast looked the minute I finished cooking it on the stove:

And then I topped it with Greek yogurt, figs and blueberries (my inability to spell "fig" in English still plagues me even now, I keep wanting to spell it à la français (figure). Oh well, trust me, this was HEAVENLY, especially with the chocolatey granola:

And even still, I had granola left over for weeks! I ate it plain and of course, I ate it in copious amounts of breakfast parfaits. Especially after buying cute little mason jars <3

I'm definitely going to have to bake my own granola again soon. With colder weather approaching Phoenix (as in, 60-80 degree weather), it's time for hot coffees and warm breakfasts!

Week 29: Home made chocolate cranberry & toasted coconut granola

Every week in 2011, for 52-straight weeks, I hope to try something new and blog about it here. This is the 29th post in the series, when I finally made my own granola at home. Here you can find a list of all my weekly adventures thus far.

I’ve always loved granola. Especially when it’s incorporated into trail mixes with nuts, fruit and chocolate. But mostly chocolate.

One of my best friends from home always makes granola, and she makes it look so easy! When I visited her at UCLA one summer I was still at UC Santa Barbara, she made honey nut granola and we ate it like there was no tomorrow.

Since then, I’ve been telling myself I’ve always wanted to make granola. But, something about it scared me. And I have no idea why, because it’s one of the easier things a person could possibly make.

Chocolate, Cranberry & Toasted Coconut Granola

Adapted from Blog Critics

• 4 c rolled oats
• 3 T cocoa powder
• 1/2 c dried cranberries
• 1/4 c coconut flakes
• 1/4 c white chocolate chips
• 1/2 c chopped nuts
• 1/3 c honey
• 3 T maple syrup
• 1/2 c almond oil
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t ginger
• 1/4 t salt

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Stir all ingredients together in a bowl. Combine until oats are totally coated. Spread in a thin layer on a parchment covered cookie sheet. Bake for 45 minutes or until a spoonful left to cool to room temperature is crunchy. Stir every 15 minutes for evenly cooked granola or leave unstirred for chunkier granola.

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Although I’ve been semi bed-ridden today, all I could think about was a bowl of this granola. For breakfast I dished out a bowl of plain Greek yogurt, sliced up strawberries and included a generous heaping of granola. I may have also grabbed a few handfuls to snack on.

So there you have it! Beautiful, chocolatey granola with a healthy serving of fruits and nuts. The cocoa powder is sort of subtle, it’s not overly chocolatey, but every now and then you get a bite of a white chocolate chip and it adds another layer of chocolate! If you’re crazy like I am, you could also throw in mini chocolate morsels prior to baking. Let’s be gourmet and call it triple chocolate granola then, instead of exposing it for the sugar overload it really is…

But come on, do you blame me?! I mean, I have been bed-ridden after all :)

Besides, I have grand ideas for this granola!

Queen Creek Peach Festival

Remember how I told you about our picnic at the local park? Let’s continue on with another free activity that took place a few weeks back: The Queen Creek Peach Festival. I’m so far behind on updates from May… going back home to California is like a vacuum that sucks me right up every time. It was great to be home; I am sad every time I head back to Arizona!

A local family-owned farm hosted the Queen Creek Peach Festival four days during what seemed like the hottest weekend of the year thus far. On the final day of the festival, we jumped into the car, grabbed some Starbucks (story for another time, I’ve almost entirely cut caffeine out of my diet) and were ready to tackle the festival.

There were tractors providing rides to the orchard, celebrity chef demonstrations (which we couldn’t seem to locate), peach pancake breakfasts and tastings.

It was crazy hot and everyone and their mom wanted to ride the tractor, but we opted to brave the mile walk on the way to the orchard. I couldn’t get over how hot it was already in May. I’m also pretty sure there wasn’t a minute that went by without me wiping sweat off myself. Hot, I know.

But eventually we picked several pounds of peaches and also came home with a jar of farm-bottled peach salsa. Yummy!

So what’s the first thing we did with all those peaches?! Make breakfast, of course!

Sausage and Peach Pancakes

Pancake Ingredients:

• 2 c pancake mix
• 1 c water
• 2 peaches
• 8 oz package sausage

Syrup Ingredients:

• 1/4 c sugar
• 1 T cornstarch
• 1/2 c peach juice (we just blended up half a peach with water)
• 3/4 c maple syrup
• 1 T butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix pancake mix and water and pour into greased 9"x13" pan. Arrange peaches alternately with sausages that have been cut in pieces. Bake for 30 minutes. For Topping: mix sugar and cornstarch with juice and cook until thick. Add maple syrup and butter.

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My mom used to make pancake and French toast “casseroles” often. This reminded me of a specific Dutch baby recipe she’s made several times. As an added bonus, ours was made from Swedish pancake mix. Oddly enough, it puffed up to the same thickness as a regular pancake, which confused my crepe-eating palate.

I also enjoyed peach smoothies for days. Funny, we never made any cobblers or grilled peach halves with all those peaches!

Oh well, at least summer (produce) is finally here!! I love watermelon and cherries and am waiting to strike as soon as they’re available at the grocery store.