Granola, But Make It Dreamy

How to make earl grey crème granola, lavender almond honey granola, matcha citrus granola, and coffee shop granola at home.

˖⁺‧₊˚✦ Exciting Note: I am hosting my first in-person event in New York! I am co-hosting a block-printing party in the West Village with Joyn, where you will leave with handmade greeting cards and new friends. I would love to see you there, and I am excited to meet the Feeling! Magazine community in real life. ˖⁺‧₊˚✦
We have very limited spaces available, and you can grab a ticket here!

When we moved to New York, I was panicked about the increased cost of living. And rightly so, honestly. Not just rent, which is its own thing entirely, but the actual cost of doing life.

I had sticker shock seeing grocery store prices at the market down the street versus the fluorescent glow of my hometown Publix. I stood in the aisle, looking at cereal prices in existential horror, the first time I ran out to grab some staples while we were still unpacking moving boxes. We’ve been here for over a year and a half now, and you do grow used to it, but in the first few months, I was shocked constantly.

I specifically noticed the markup on pantry items that I love. I skew toward healthy eating, and often avoid gluten when I can due to some health issues years prior. I was already buying snacky foods and pantry items at a premium back in Florida. In NY, it seemed like the packages got smaller and the prices of my favorite organic jams, granola, cereals, chips, and snacks doubled.

As often happens when backed into a financial corner, creativity began to abound. DoorDash every night is not an option. Grocery prices hurt my feelings. Thus, creative problem-solving was needed.

I decided my best bet was to turn my kitchen into my favorite restaurant. If I loved eating here, I wouldn’t be so tempted to eat out. And if I loved cooking, I’d get a lot better at buying ingredients I would use up.

If I were more thoughtful about my weekly menus, I could scale back my bad habit of over-buying. That method began working immediately. Next, I thought about style and creativity. Could I learn to make the kind of food I loved to buy from restaurants? What would keep me coming back, excited to cook? I started to track what we were drawn to, from flavor profiles to presentation. I researched my favorite restaurant’s seasonal menus and monitored their new items on social media, letting it inform what I made in my kitchen.

Turns out, I have a hobby! I love the process of developing weekly menus, cooking for friends, and creative flow in the kitchen. It scratched my brain in the way uninterrupted illustration or journaling time does.

Now that I’ve worked out some systems that brought genuine joy to my home cooking and eating routines, I am eager to share. I went from hardly ever cooking at all to dreading it, to now thinking of it as a creative hobby. I’ve transitioned from avoidance to getting giddy about kitchen tools. Seriously — just like I would get yarn and needles, or gouache or some other creative tools, I am nurturing my cooking practice. And to compound the fun, I get to write about it and make recipes to share with you!

This year, I am organizing the kitchen series exclusively for paying subscribers of Feeling! into a sort of curriculum (I was a curriculum writer, after all), and I’m starting the series with pantry basics. If you have marvelous things in your cabinets, you can make even more marvelous meals.

I noticed one item that was consistently draining on our grocery receipt was granola. Grain-free granola comes in 8-oz bags, with an $8+ pricepoint, yet we could eat 8 oz in one sitting. Also, the flavors are often a little boring.

So this weekend, I decided to learn how to make granola myself. I finished the project with bulk batches of granola that taste better than store-bought AND a newfound skill that will allow me to batch make seasonal flavors whenever I fancy in less than 30 minutes. Endless kitchen creativity!

I made the following blends:

• Earl Grey Creme: Using actual crushed tea leaves, the flavor of bergamot and black tea enhances a rich blend of nuts with no grains.

• Matcha Citrus: Using a matcha glaze and chunks of dried mango, this blend is bright and uplifting.

• Lavender Honey Almond: Inspired by a sweet French pastry, I made this blend with floral notes to accompany the spring season.

• Coffee Shop Granola: You know, when you stumble upon the perfect coffee shop in some quaint town you are visiting? And it is diabolically delicious and cozy, but you know you’ll never be back? This blend of cinnamon date granola is inspired by those magical small-town breakfasts in a local coffee shop.

Each set took about 10 minutes to chop up and 20-25 minutes to bake. It was also a delightfully simple system — repeatable and easy. I listened to an audiobook (Picture of Dorian Gray) as I chopped theraputically.

I am not near a Costco, but if you are, you should get the ingredients in bulk and make GIANT batches of granola, making this practice even more cost-effective.

I also cannot help but think how lovely homemade granola would be as a gift. You can make a large batch, jar or bag portions, and give them away!

Let’s dig into the recipes: