Cinnamon Granola Clusters

Since I had Friday off, my whole weekend has been off – Saturday felt like Sunday all day! We slept in so long on Saturday morning, I didn’t make breakfast until nearly 11:30 – so this was brunch – 1 scrambled egg, 2 slices of bacon, 2 sausages and an English muffin – reminded me of a true diner breakfast!

Check to see if your deli sells bacon.  Our store sells this “Gypsy” bacon for $3.99 a pound.  Most of the bacon sold in the refrigerator case are only 10 or 12 ounces for the same price.  And at the deli you can request how thick you want the bacon cut.

So while I was doing some computer work on Saturday I hear this barking outside my window.  Um, turns out Kyle the Squirrel was trying to get my attention!  What did I do?  I jumped up and got her some almonds!  You see that blue dish to the right?  That’s usually her food dish, I haven’t filled it up in a while!

I am kind of getting obsessed with making granola lately.  I am still trying to find the perfect blend – all crunchy, clustery.  I read online that if you whisk up an egg white until frothy, add that at the very end before baking.  I figured I’d give it a try!

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I was thrilled that after the tray cooled, I was able to break the granola into clusters – super crunchy!

One problem.  This morning, the granola was chewy again. WTF?!  I ended up baking the granola a second time, clusters and all, for another 15 minutes at 300 and let cool.  Success!  This morning they were still nice and crunchy.

I still hadn’t gone to the grocery store.  I was thinking I would just run to the store and pick up something up.  I asked if Tony had a taste for anything, and he said “we have egg noodles in the cupboard, do we have stuff to make beef stroganoff?”  Well, I dove into the back of my freezer and lo and behold I found a one pound piece of chuck roast.  Done!  I also found a package of these veggies – I cooked up 3/4 of a cup of these veggies to add into my beef stroganoff.

First, my shitty picture of dinner – my battery died right after this picture on my DSLR.

I ended up only using 1/2 a cup of cooked noodles – pure comfort food!

As Tony and I were flipping channels, I started cruising through Instagram hash tags and found cats with wigs!  I literally could not stop laughing at this picture!

I sent it to my step-son and daughter in law – they have a cat and I know my step-daughter-in law would totally get wigs for their cat!

Sunday morning, Tony made me breakfast – spicy tomatillo scrambled eggs, toast and apple.  This also was breakfast and lunch!

Since I was pretty lazy on Saturday, I had to make up for it yesterday.  Only one problem – holy cow was it super stormy!  I never did get an Insanity workout done since I had to shut off the computer while it was stormy.  But it was a perfect day to spend in the kitchen!

I ended up making Tony pretzel bites for his football snack – with jarred queso sauce on the side.

I’ve decided to keep my breakfasts and lunches simple this week.  Sometimes I think I have to make something different every single day to keep things interested, but you know what?  Simple works too!  I made a jalapeno popper quiche for 4 of my breakfasts this week – recipe coming tomorrow!  1/4 of the pie is only 247 calories!  Paired with a Chobani and some fruit, healthy breakfast – done.

I also made a pot of chili for later in the week.  And since pork bbq ribs were on sale (1 slab of ribs was only $6!).  I slow roasted them in the oven for 3 hours at 250.  I made another batch of Rudy’s BBQ sauce and ended up finishing up the ribs under the broiler.

With coleslaw on the side, it tasted like summer, even though we are half way through November!

I have a favor to ask.  My brother’s friends house got flooded on Halloween and they pretty much lost everything they own.  They were even hosting an exchange student and had to find a place for them to live.

If you have a couple extra bucks, I would appreciate it if you could check out their fundraising page.

We’ve had water in our basement, but other than losing some snowmen, we didn’t lose much.  I can’t imagine losing everything!  So maybe we can skip a couple Pumpkin Lattes this week and pay it forward?

Today brings Week 9 of the Strength Training – todays legs workout looks pretty intense!  I haven’t done every single workout of this training, but probably 80%.  Since this is the last phase, I am going to try to do my best to do every single workout these last three weeks. Only 44 days until January 1 – let’s finish the year out strong!

Make it a great day!