Pioneer-Woman Pursuits

I've begun implementing the next part of my healthy-eating plan by making my own granola (last weekend) and yogurt (yesterday). 

I've thought of doing this before, and seen countless "quick and easy" recipes for homemade food that piqued my interest, but inevitably shrugged off the idea every time it cropped up, telling myself, I don't have time to make my own food.

Well, who does? I might never have more time than I do right now, so I need to make time for it, the same way I make time for workouts, laundry, grocery shopping, and other odious chores and errands. You know, because it's something that's truly meaningful and beneficial for my short-term and long-term health. Sure, it's more time-consuming than plucking a carton of yogurt off the store's shelf or grabbing a bag or box of granola from the cereal aisle. 

But factor in the time that I spend carefully examining the ingredient lists as I try to determine which products are the most natural, unprocessed, and least sugary. There's also the price comparisons that I resort to regardless of the amount in my bank account. I'm frugal. I use coupons as often as possible and try to choose the most affordable healthy option on the shelf, though I'm learning to rank health factor over cost factor whenever I make my choice.

Anyway, back to my pioneer-woman pursuits... 

The Internet has made the recipe search so easy. (What would I do without it, besides spend a fortune on cookbooks?) It was there that I found both recently-attempted, mostly-successful recipes for honey-nut granola and crockpot yogurt. 

The granola truly is quick and easy. Just mix various nuts, oats, sunflower seeds, spices, and a few other ingredients together in a large bowl, spread the mixture out on a baking sheet, and place it in the oven for 20 minutes. It tastes and smells amazing once it's baked, and it stores nicely in the refrigerator, providing breakfast (with almond milk...yum!) for up to a week (depending on how much you make).

My first attempt at homemade granola (with my quite-amazing oatmeal-peanut butter bars in the background).

The crockpot yogurt recipe is slightly less foolproof, though I admittedly ignored part of the recipe's directions, with predictably less-than-perfect results. I politely declined to use powdered milk to thicken up the mixture and used 1% instead of whole milk, which resulted in a thin - almost soupy - yogurt that resembled store-bought yogurt only in color and taste (that's what my arrogant, unfounded bias against powdered milk got me).

My beloved slow cooker came through once again!

I stuck my plastic yogurt container in the freezer to avoid sipping it through a straw and found that the hidden yogurt beneath the protective frosted coating was quite thick and tasty. (Frozen yogurt > yogurt soup.) I'll undoubtedly tweak the recipe next time I make it (or perhaps consider following the original directions by using the offensive powdered milk) and see what happens. It's all part of the adventure. 

I'm rather enjoying this nifty new hobby of mine.