I am such a sucker for packaging.

I love boxes. Or rather, I love the thought of what is in the box.

No seriously, I will rummage through what appears to be and is in a fact an empty box because well, I cannot help myself. I just have to make sure there’s not some forgotten treasure that has been lost to this, this box. 

So when the holidays roll around I get a little critical/anal/fanatic about packaging. 

There is so much, SO much, that is just so dang bad.

I am a fan of simple. and cheap. Did I mention that? Yeah, cheap. 

All the presents I wrapped were in old brown paper bags from the grocer.

Instead of bows I went with what I already had in the kitchen: baker’s twine.

I did purchase brown kraft tags, a stamp, and a new ink pad.

When I couldn’t find another stamp I wanted I ran across a cut design felt placemat of snowflakes. Cut each one loose from another and viola: great gift tag addition. 

A few snips of some smaller branches of the Christmas tree and y'all got awesome. 

Bet y'all didn’t know that I had this crafty, domestic, slightly unnerving sensibility that all the packaging has to be …ab-so-fuckin’-lutely fabulous. 

Yeah, that’s real talk. Do it up right or go home. 

Just sayin’…

And good design.

I am sucker for good design.

And if I had listened to my mother I should have went to school for design. Fashion, textiles, printmaking (did that), typography,  photography (that’s what we are doing here folks) I’ve dabble in a bit of it all. 

So when I got the What Katie Ate cookbook for a present–

I dipped a little more than a toe in. 

Rolled in it.

Fell asleep with it.

I woke up with the book on my face.

Yes, I am in it for the recipes. too. 

But I will admit that I am also in it for the textures, the colors but it is the painterly photographs make you forget that youare looking a photo. The sort of composition that you find yourself contemplating how did you capture those colors, that light, the dark darks. Where do you get all that style, girl? And wait the food? I get to eat that food too? 

I got to pinch myself because it is almost to good to be true.

Know what else is almost too good true?

This here granola. This granola that I adapted slightly from What Katie Ate cookbook. 

Everything but the Kitchen Sink Granola

(What Katie Ate cookbook, Bob’s Granola) 

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 5 mins plus 45 mins for baking

Yield: 6 pint Ball jars of awesome

Preheat your oven to 300.

First measure out all your dried fruits, nuts and seeds.

1 cup currants and ¾ cup cranberries

1 cup sunflower seeds, 1 cup pumpkins seeds, 1 cup local pecans. 

Next you can measure about 6 cups of rolled oats in a large bowl. This is a little over a pound if you’re buying in bulk. ¾ cup unsweetened coconut flakes.

I used a few spices too. 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp allspice,  1 tsp ginger, ½ tsp cardamom, and ½ tsp nutmeg.

Now that y'all have all your dry ingredients measured it is time to get cracking on the syrup. Grab a medium size saucepan and over medium heat add ¼ cup of maple syrup, ¼ cup local honey, ¼ cup sorghum molasses, 2 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp vanilla extract.  Whisk until it the mixture starts to thin. Once it is thin enough to pour add in all your spices. Whisk for a few seconds then remove from heat. 

Grab all your dried fruit, nuts, and seeds add those to your large bowl of rolled oats. Mixed until well combined.

Now separate your mix in half. Reserve one bowl of oats, fruit, and nuts. 

Pour your syrup mixture into one of the rolled oat, fruit, and nut mix bowls. Combine until well coated but clumpy. Spread this mix out on 2 parchment paper lined baking sheets. 

Bake at 300 for 45 mins.  Be sure to toss  the mix a few times while it is baking so that it browns evenly. 

Once your granola is done baking remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

When the baked mixture has cooled completely combined the dry mix to the freshly baked mix. I added 1/3 of cup of 70% dark chocolate chips to the mix.

That’s it.

You’re done.  

Jar it up, dress it up, and send it on its merry way.