Nuts about cards and granola!

We had a lovely Father’s Day weekend on the farm with a few visitors from Joburg and a special visit from Ashley. We hadn’t seen her since the end of April so it was a real treat to have her in the house again. It was quite cold so we all just snuggled up in front of the fire and played endless games of Uno together. I never grew up in a house of card players, but Quentin’s family are crazy for cards especially his mum. Ashley’s caught the bug from her granny and absolutely loves playing Uno and rummy. For some reason the adults joined in with gusto this weekend spurred on by Quentin and James’ competitive streak. We had such a laugh and needless to say Ashley loved it! Livia was so happy to see her sister again and gave her lots of smiles. She is very chilled at the moment and is observing the world from every angle. I can’t believe how fast the time is passing just two weeks short of her six month birthday!

I did lots of cooking before the weekend to fill the house with some of Quentin’s favourite food for Father’s Day. While he drove to Joburg on Friday to fetch Ashley, I cooked my first ever oxtail, experimented with filleting and smoking a beautiful rainbow trout we got from Lesotho, made his favourite cheese cake with vanilla ice cream and a batch of nutty granola. Everything turned out really well and having pre-prepared it all I could relax over the weekend. The only disaster was that the Beagles jumped on the counter and polished off half of the cheese cake this morning after I forgot to put it back in the fridge last night!! I managed to salvage a last little slither for our afternoon tea, but it was such a waste.

I’ve recently started posting photos to Instagram (http://instagram.com/marisdbruyn/) and have been participating in a photography challenge called #clickaday. It’s been quite fun finding things to photograph each day and it’s obviously much quicker than sitting down to write a whole blog post (something I seem to have less and less time for). After posting a photo of the granola on Friday quite a few people liked the look of it and so I promised to share the recipe. The recipe is from the Woolworths Taste magazine with a few of my own tweaks. What I love is that it’s not full of sugar and the nuts are soaked overnight to make them more easy to digest. It’s great to have a stash in the cupboard for a quick breakfast with yoghurt and fruit and even Quentin loves adding it to Pronutro or Wheatbix. It’s very easy to make so give it a try!

Nutty Granola

(Makes 1kg)

250g raw Pecan nuts

250g raw Almonds

500g Rolled Oats

A few handfuls of mixed seeds to taste (pumpkin, sunflower, linseed, flaxseed etc)

3t ground cinnamon

1 cup Agave syrup (can be substituted with honey)

2t vanilla paste

1 cup melted coconut oil (or macadamia oil)

Soak the nuts in water for 8-12 hours (almonds need a bit longer than pecan nuts). Rinse well with cold water and dry spread out on kitchen paper or in the sun. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Roughly chop the nuts and combine with the oats, seeds and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Mix the melted coconut oil, agave syrup and vanilla paste together and combine with the dry ingredients. Line a large baking tray (or 2) with tinfoil and spread the granola mixture in a thin layer. Bake for 15-20 minutes stirring a few times to make sure it bakes evenly. Don’t leave the room to do something else without setting a timer or the nuts will burn (I speak from experience)!! Cook for longer if need be until the granola has a nice golden colour (if the nuts are still wet it will take longer to cook). Remove from the oven and stir to make sure it doesn’t stick. Leave to cool completely and crisp up. Store in an airtight container.