But no. The joy was short-lived. We came home, Maisey snarfed some chicken broth and rice down to help her ailing tummy, and I cleaned the kitchen. And then a barrage of insanity and hysteria was unleashed upon my house like some sort of Old Testament scourge.
It started out innocently enough, precipitated by some dish washing, which has apparently always been evil masquerading as culturally mandated cleanliness. I made it through the sink of dishes, and before my sudsy little sausage fingers could intervene, that heartless wench named gravity pulled a large drinking glass off the edge of the counter and hurled it to the ground. Glass shattered everywhere. It was like the glass was laced with explosives. Pieces hit the ceiling and flew through the kitchen into the living room.
And then I heard it. The jingle of the dog's collar. She was slumbering in the corner like a giant woolly mammoth/snuffleupagus hybrid, and was jolted awake into a state of terror. I flew across the room (thankfully, wearing shoes), threw the back door open, and shoved the dog out onto the patio. We live in a condo complex and don't have a backyard, but we do have a gated patio. Which is great to sequester the dog in when she needs to be removed from the house. If the gate is shut. And the gate totally was not shut.
In a matter of seconds, the dog flew out of the gate, turned to look at me with an utterly devious look in her eye, and took off for the grassy common area. Stop one for psycho-beast: a gaggle of small, pre-school aged children. Of course. She began leaping at them, drool-covered tongue flapping in the breeze before it made contact with their peanut butter and jelly smeared faces. The carnage claimed five small munchkins before she lost interest. Beast begins chasing a man puffing a cigarette while pushing a stroller. I think he also claimed ownership of the previously assaulted children, but chose not to worry about an 80 pound monster licking them to death. Maisey jumped on the man. Maisey jumped on the stroller. Maisey graced the baby with a face slobber before she moved on to run psychotic circles around the rather large common area.
I had no chance of catching her without some form of divine intervention. Maisey's favorite game is "chase me," so running to catch her only fuels the madness. Fifteen minutes later, as she stopped to smell what a male dog left on a tree, I managed to nab the scruff of her neck and get a firm grip on the collar. I herded her back into the gated area, and returned to the scene of the kitchen disaster.
I won't detail the cleaning of the glass, except to say this-after I picked up all of the large pieces and got the vacuum out to help with the thousands of small shards all over the floor, I thought I was home free. Nope. Not by a mile. The blasted vacuum struck the dog's massive one-gallon water bowl and dumped the whole thing all over the floor. Teensy-tiny shards of glass mixed with water. Freaking lovely.
It was at this point that I let out some sort of primal growl that became a scream, channeling both a T-Rex and Velociraptor at the same time. It was lovely. I threw the vacuum to the ground, chucked a towel on the mess, and grabbed a giant jar of granola that had chocolate chips in it (the only chocolate in the house), sat down on the couch, and picked the chocolate out of the rest of the mix for a solid 15 minutes.
I had no reason to share that story other than to (hopefully) entertain, and to serve as introduction to my recipe for some seriously trash-kicking granola. Go make some-it works out to about $8 for 10 cups of granola, and at 266 calories for a 1/3 cup serving, it is a nutritionally packed and totally scrumptious snack. I like it sprinkled on yogurt with fruit, dry, or served with a little almond milk. Every calorie is a hearty one, and is absolutely good for you. And it's a great decompression tool when you need a chocolate fix after your kitchen, gravity, dog and vacuum declare open war on you.
Crunchy Quinoa Granola
*Note: this can be gluten free, if you get certified gluten free oats and oat groats
*Can be easily adapted to use different nuts, fruits and flavorings. Experiment!
*Easily adapted to be organic too! Mine was about 80% organic, with the exception for the fruit, and still only came in around $8 for the batch.
- 2 cups whole rolled oats
- 1 cup uncooked oat groats (whole oats, not rolled)
- 1 cup quinoa (1/2 cup red quinoa, 1/2 cup regular quinoa)-rinse well before using
- 1 cup raw almonds, chopped coarsely
- 1/4 cup raw unsalted sunflower seeds
- 1 cup chopped dried papaya (I purchased 1/2 pound from the bulk bin and chopped it)
- 1 cup chopped dried dates (1/2 pound from bulk section, chopped)
- 1 cup dried orange flavored cranberries, chopped
- 10 ounces of dark (85% cacoa) chocolate chips
- 3 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup raw honey, melted
- 1 cup coconut oil, melted
1. Preheat over to 225. Line 2 baking rimmed baking sheets with parchment
2. Combine all dry ingredients, including cinnamon.
3. Chop fruit and nuts, add to dry mixture and combine well to distribute all ingredients.
4. Melt coconut oil and honey. Pour evenly over the dry mixture and mix with wooden spoon to combine.
5. Spread 1/2 of the granola mixture on each baking sheet and bake for 60 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven, let cool. When cooled, add the chocolate chips and mix to combine.
7. Pour into airtight glass jars. Store for up to two weeks.
Serving size: 1/3 cup Calories: 266
