We've gone apple picking as a family every October since Eli was born. This was his third trip to the orchard and once again we had a fantastic time filling our bag with fresh apples, sampling a few on the way, and plotting some of the delicious goodies we'll make from our harvest (this year: apple butter, applesauce, apple crisp, and maybe some muffins? Plus plenty for snacks with almond butter). Apples just taste better when they're straight off the tree.

Just putting this out there: I will probably never post anything other than a list of sorts on a Friday. By the end of the week, my brain is toast. Point form is the best I can do.

"I made granola" is a very Earth-mother, hippy-dippy, peace-and-love thing to say, and I relate to none of those things. I suck at separating my compost, I get road rage, and I don't want to share the land.

But I do love a little granola sprinkled on my yogurt, and I don't necessarily like it to be laden with fat, sugars and crazy chemicals.

Mixing it up.

Granola is so easy to make yourself, and so simple to modify to however you like it, there's not really any need to buy pre-packaged stuff from the cereal aisle. I was able to whip up some applesauce granola on Saturday using ingredients I already had on hand at home, with a few little adjustments to a recipe I found online, and it turned out great.

Here's a link to the recipe I used, and here it is with the modifications I made, just because I didn't have some of the stuff in the cupboard but I really, REALLY had a hankering for granola:

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups oats
• 1 cup nuts (pecans, walnuts, almonds) (I used almonds because that's what I had on hand) 
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds (I used pumpkin seeds instead. Work with what you got, kids!) 
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds (I skipped this because I didn't have any) 
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 TBSP honey
• 1 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup raisins (I didn't have raisins so I used craisins instead - any dried fruit/berries would work well)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 300F.
• Mix together your dry ingredients, minus the raisins, in a large bowl. 
• In a small saucepan, warm the applesauce, honey, and oil over low heat. 
• Mix the applesauce mixture into the oat mixture and stir to coat everything. Spread the mixture onto a 9x13 baking pan. 
• Bake for 45-50 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, until granola is a deep brown. Remove from oven and stir in raisins. Let cool before eating! (I didn't)

Crunchy yums!

Instead of waxing poetic about all the awesomeness that was New York this past weekend, I am going to tell you about the one big disappointment of the trip: White Castle.

First of all let's rewind back about, ohhh, six or seven years. I decided to rent a movie and drink a jumbo jug of the cheapest wine I could get my underpaid paws on. With jug in hand, I headed to the video store, and apparently already under the influence of something or other I selected Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. What prompted me to get this movie I'll never know. Growing up in Le Grand Blanc Nord we don't have White Castle and I had never been to one but was curious to see what the fuss was about.

Back at the ranch I proceeded to get shittered while watching this cinematic abomination, AND I LOVED IT. I laughed until I cried. I thought it was the funniest movie I had ever seen. And while I was not high, at least not without a prescription, I wanted some of those little White Castle burgers. They looked adorable. I'd never seen tiny burgers before. And the lengths Harold and Kumar went to to get White Castle? I figured it had to be good.

Fast forward to last week when Peter and I were making our list of must-do things for New York. Sadly, a lot of them revolved around food, i.e. Magnolia Bakery, authentic New York City-style pizza (which we never ended up having, sad trombone) and yes, WHITE CASTLE. There are apparently three locations in the city so we marked down the one on 8th Avenue. We went on Saturday after walking around the city for hours and we were famished and so ready to devour some of those succulent little burgers to see just how delicious they would be.

This was one of the dirtiest eating establishments I've been in, but never mind that - the food was absolutely awful. The food was disgusting. It was so bad that PETER, who can eat two double quarter pounders AND large fries AND not die, didn't finish his meal despite being starving. It was like sweaty buns with a slice of ham on them. They didn't look good, smell good, or taste good. So not worth the trek.

I don't know what Harold and Kumar were thinking. Granted, they were high in the movie, as I suspect most of the customers and staff were when we showed up there on Saturday afternoon judging from the CRACK DEAL we saw and overheard. Maybe this is an everyday thing in some places but I have never seen crack, let alone crack being purchased loudly in the middle of a fast-food restaurant at one-thirty in the afternoon. I thought those sorts of things were supposed to be kind of quiet? Back alleys and the cover of darkness and whatnot? Maybe we didn't appreciate the food because there weren't enough drugs in our systems. Or maybe it just sucks.

[+] the first barbecue of the season (and every one thereafter). Food prepared outdoors JUST TASTES BETTER. We barbecued tonight - burgers with fried mushrooms and salad with mango and avocados. Best burger I've ever tasted, hands down.

[+] mystery drinks. In an effort to pretend I'm drinking alcohol (two more weeks! two more weeks!) I started scrounging the fridge looking for random ingredients we have on hand to make faux-alcoholic bevvies. Tonic water with juice tastes kind of like a liquory drink, minus the hangover. Throw in a hunk of fruit if you want to get fancy.

[+] hanging out with Rory. Our little baby is growing up - he's almost 8 months and he's in a weird, gangly, in-between stage. He's funny and makes me laugh every single day. Now that the weather is nicer it's awesome to play fetch with him and not freeze your extremities off or have to pull snowballs off his fur.

[+] baseball games on TV. A nice little reminder that summer is coming. At this time of year I start hating hockey and loving on baseball. Get the puck off the ice, as they say.

[+] old-school arcade games on Xbox 360. We downloaded Sonic 2 the other day and I could play it all day long. The graphics are crap and the game is horrible but it takes me back to my Grade 7 days like no other! Funny how you can not play a game for 15 years and remember every detail perfectly but I have no idea what I had for lunch yesterday.

Sometimes I feel like I eat all day long or like I'm constantly putting food in my mouth.

I have a pretty rigid eating routine on work days:

8:00 AM - Breakfast
9:00 AM - Coffee when I get to work
10:00 AM - Snack
12:00 noon - Lunch
3:00 PM - Snack
7:00 PM - Dinner

Is that a lot? I know you're supposed to eat every few hours but sometimes I feel like quite the heff, eating every time I turn around. I don't understand how people can skip breakfast and go all the way to lunch without eating anything. I would actually die. If my little routine gets interrupted (for example, there's a morning meeting and I can't have a snack until 11:00) I get UPSET. The whole day is off. I like my routine. In a chaotic world, it's one of the few things I can control. I like knowing that I can eat a snack at 3:00 regardless of what else is going on.

None of my meals are usually huge - for example, today for breakfast I had a peanut-butter-banana wrap, morning snack was a Special K bar, lunch was a soup and some trail mix and a soy latte. I have an apple for my afternoon snack. Dinner will probably be a stir-fry or leftover noodles and there better be a brownie to top it all off. Maybe that's a lot of food. Maybe it's not.

I almost always bring lunch from home, unless there's a lunch outing with my coworkers or with friends. Usually it's a salad, sandwich, or soup. I have been on quite the soup kick lately - two minutes in the microwave and you're good to go. When it's minus-22 outside, a nice hot soup can be a comfort halfway through the day. If I make a sandwich, it's always either peanut butter/banana, grilled veggie, or turkey, because those are the only kinds of sandwiches worth eating, IMHO. (Unless it's grilled cheese, but you CAN NOT bring a nasty ass soggy cold grilled cheese and eat it hours after grilling). Salads are awesome because you feel all vicarious and healthy eating them, but then you're ready to gnaw your own arm off an hour later. I like to put nuts on them (TWSS) and goat cheese and other proteiny things that probably make my "healthy" salads nutritional disasters.

So now that I've dorked out over food, tell me your eating habits. I want to know if anybody else follows a facist regime when it comes to eating, and also, if you bring your lunch, what do you pack? Gotta go, it's 3:00 apple time!