Wild Rice Breakfast Porridge

I'm in the middle of studying for my first final that is coming up on Friday, but I thought I'd drop in to share this awesome-sounding recipe for wild rice breakfast porridge. It sounds like a perfectly warm and filling winter breakfast that I can't wait to try.

As I occasionally usually leave only a few minutes to make breakfast each morning, I love that this recipe makes enough for a week!  Also, I love that the recipe suggests serving with maple syrup. I hadn't pushed my maple syrup beyond the borders of pancakes and waffles until recently, and now I'm hooked.

Wild Rice Photo via Gourmet Sleuth

A Really Good Friday Night

Yes. This is how I define an amazing start to the weekend. Reindeer cookies. Correction: Reindeer brown sugar cookies. My roommate found an awesome recipe here and found our decorating inspiration here.  These were by far the most moist and fluffy cookies I have ever had. 

The frosting was another story. We used this recipe after searching for a frosting recipe that didn't require powdered sugar (it was about 11 pm at this point and we had already made an emergency trip to the grocery store for M and Ms and chocolate covered pretzels). I think I'll continue my search for a good vanilla frosting recipe because this one tasted a little bit too much like straight butter and sugar. Not something I would normally complain about, but I do like a little extra kick to my frosting sometimes. Any recipe suggestions?

Maple Granola, A Love Story

After much delay, I bring you my favorite granola recipe. While I haven't made all that much good granola in my day, I have made A LOT of bad granola. I don't know if it's just one of those things that I have trouble with, or maybe granola is hard for everyone. Thoughts?

Anyway, this recipe is a winner. I first made it to include in a batch of banana granola pancakes (heavenly, by the way). Since then, this has been my go-to granola recipe. It's easy and delicious and even gets a little bit clumpy like store bought granola.

My advice: don't skimp on the salt. My favorite part about this recipe is that the sweet is perfectly balanced by the salt. As all good granola recipes are, this one is pretty adaptable. I start with this recipe as the base. I usually leave out the oat bran (I don't hate on oat bran, I just don't always have it on hand). Then, I use any combination of walnuts, almonds and/or pepitas. I haven't tried it with dried fruit but I image it would be delicious with some craisins.

A mason jar filled with granola and topped with a festive bow might make a great holiday gift, don't you think?

Photo by Howard Puckett and styling by Fonda Shaia via My Recipes