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October 30, 2013

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in the times of moral crisis.  - Dante Aligheri


While reading Dan Brown's latest page turner Inferno, I was struck by the powerful effect of Dante's words.  I immediately ran to my room to grab a pen and paper to write them down.  They are now up on my bulletin board and watch over me daily.  I view them as a constant reminder to steadfastly stand by what I believe in.

October 28, 2013

A new direction -- spiced up granola

Beginnings are always interesting.  They are fresh, new exhilarating, sometimes terrifying, but nonetheless they are part of life.  I am beginning a new chapter in my life and I thought it would be nice to get some consistency back.  Thus I am going to resuscitate this blog from its dying last legs and give it some new life.

In the spirit of beginnings, I'm going to take this blog in a slightly new direction.  I'm going to attempt to start trying some of the many recipes from the many blogs I follow.

Here it goes...

Granola.  There is something so satisfying about pouring some in a bowl with a splash of milk in the morning.  Heck any time of day.  I decided to finally try making some from scratch instead of just buying it from various sources.













It should stay fresh if kept in an airtight container for about 1.5 - 2 weeks.















I was inspired by Cookie + Kate's Gingerbread Granola so I put a little twist on it and it turned out quite wonderfully.

The only changes I made were adding:
- 1/3 cup flax seeds (about a 1/3 cup worth because I had them lying around)
- substituting an equal amount of honey for the molasses
- omitting the ginger (sadly didn't have any around)
- and substituting dried apricots for the dried cranberries
- substituting 1 T of ground cardamom for the ground ginger (I fell in love with cardamom after spending a summer in Sweden)

I've got to say I'm quite impressed by my first shot at this, and hope that this is what all of my future endeavors will be like instead of this being just beginners luck.


October 27, 2013

Birthday Getaway Weekend in Stockholm

Tea at the Grand

a Swedish Flag for my birthday.

(whipped cream, sweet vanilla cream cheese, whipped butter, lime curd, and strawberry preserves)

my favorite was a combo of vanilla cream cheese and lime curd.