So, it was my goal not to leave my house this weekend.

It’s cold outside.

I hate the cold.

It sucks really badly.

I sort of failed, because I did run to Target with Neal, but other than that, I think I’m well on my way to staying inside the rest of the weekend. It’s awesome.

After work Friday, I made a quick stop at the grocery store and then came home. I read this blog entry about homemade granola, so I decided to try my own. I really love vanilla nonfat yogurt and granola, but granola is expensive and I’m never quite sure what’s in it. I like the idea of putting in exactly what I like. I did alter her recipe a bit, so here’s what I ended up coming up with:

1 3/4 cups old-fashioned oats

1/2 cup chopped almonds

1/2 cup craisins

3 Tbsp. maple syrup

1 Tbsp. honey

1/8 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Directions: Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix the oats, chopped almonds, craisins, vanilla, salt and spices in a bowl. Then, mix the maple syrup and honey into the oat mixture (I used light syrup, and I also zapped the honey and the maple syrup in the microwave for 10 to 15 seconds so it was easier to mix.) Then spread the mixture onto the parchment paper and bake for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then, let it cool. It’ll harden and then you can break it up in small pieces and store it.

This had such an awesome flavor. It wasn’t too sweet, but had a great nutty flavor from roasting it at a low temp. The craisins are great, because the tartness really cuts the sweetness of the syrup and honey.

And mixed with vanilla yogurt? Oh boy, this was so good. I don’t think I’ll ever buy granola again.

Yum!

Saturday, I took pictures of sleepy Simone.

And cute Ferris:

And then he decided he wanted to eat the remote.

After Neal and I got back from Target, I decided to make this recipe for Chocolate Sour Cream Cake. I like cakes made with buttermilk and/or sour cream. I had most of the ingredients on hand, and I really wanted to try out my new bundt cake pan I got on sale at Ross a couple of weeks ago. This cake turned out great. It smelled amazing and was really pretty.

And the taste is GREAT. Really moist. Chocolaty (is that a word?) but not too chocolaty. Also, I really don’t like super sweet cakes, and this is definitely not too sweet. It was really easy to make (except now I realize that I didn’t cream the brown sugar in with the white sugar and butter; for some reason I mixed it with the dry ingredients, HAHA). But anyway, I definitely plan to make this again. Some sort of coffee liquer glaze or something would be perfect on top.