Okay, a PG13 version of masochistic at best.
So granola's tricky. Maybe everyone has a different ideal for granola, but I believe it should be clusters of sweet oats and dried fruit. If it's crumbly, it's not granola. If it's soft, it's not granola. If it burns, well, it may have been granola once...
I'm also a frustrated perfectionist.
3/4 c. packed brown sugar, divided
1/2 c. maple syrup
1/4 c. egg whites (about 2 large egg whites)
1 tbsp. vanilla extract 1 1/4 tsp. maple extract
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
3 c. old-fashioned oats
1 c. walnut halves (broken in half)
1 c. dried cranberries
Preheat oven to 325 Fahrenheit and position rack in lower 2/3rds of oven. Prepare a baking sheet with spray or butter. Stir half a cup of brown sugar with the maple syrup in a heavy, small saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves, occasionally brushing down the sides with a wet pastry brush. Pour into a large bowl and let cool to lukewarm. Whisk in the egg whites, spices and extracts. Add the oats, nuts and remaining 1/4 c. of brown sugar. Toss well. Spread the mixture evenly on baking sheet and bake for 35 minutes. Using a metal spatula, flip the granola over and bake 10 minutes more. Sprinkle with cranberries and bake about 10 minutes more, or until the granola is dry. Cool the granola completely in the pan.
I know a lady (who's a much better baker and cook than me) who gave me this recipe for her maple-walnut granola with dried cranberries. The first time I made it I followed the recipe exactly and the granola was incredible. Of course. Good cook (her), good recipe (hers), good granola (mine).
The second time I made it, I substituted agave nectar, honey, and sugar water for the maple syrup and cut down on the brown sugar, and it turned into bland, clump oatmeal mixed with dried fruit, even after leaving it in the oven an extra 30 minutes hoping, in vain, that the water would evaporate out and the granola would get crisp. Bad cook (me), bad recipe (mine), bad granola (Alas, also mine).
So yesterday I decided to try again. I was going to follow the recipe, really, I was, but it calls for 1/2 cup of maple syrup, and maple syrup and I don't get along. It makes me gittery and anxious and irritable. So I used a cup of white sugar- substitute (xylitol), a quarter cup of water, and a tbsp of molasses (White sugar + molasses = brown sugar, and the water would give the oatmeal the liquid it needed to coat the oats and to not burn). I think this was fine, but I didn't get the total 1 1/4 cups of intense combined sugar and syrup flavour that the recipe called for. I shouldn't have estimated. My friend's recipe would not lead me astray. Granola is ridiculously sugary, and it's a treat, and I should have just done what the recipe said and dealt with the inevitable anxiety attack.
Granola-making and yoga, peas in a pod. Two things that if I actually did well, I would move to Vancouver to pursue among my brethren. After eating disappointing granola for a day, being over-tired, and very, very stiff, I decided to go to a yoga class. A new studio opened by my house, so the need to be outside in the cold to get there would last no more than 2 minutes. The class was free because it was my first time there, and it would be hot. 42 celcius, to be exact. An hour and a half until loose muscles and real sugar/fake-sugar detox.
My granola had tasted hollow. It smelled deceptively amazing from the Mexican vanilla extract I used, plus the cinnamon and allspice, but the sweetness of the dried dates (a fine substitute for cranberries) added at the end really didn't make the oats themselves any better. "Hollow" is really the only word I can think of to describe the result. Well, maybe depressing, but I ate it anyway and accepted it. There was nothing I could really do to change it.
...No downward-facing dog. No sun salutations. Lots of contracting, spine-bends and corpse-pose. 20 minutes into the class I am exhausted (not physically from the yoga, but physically from not sleeping enough), 45 minutes in I figure it's half over and I have no idea what to expect, and 70 minutes in I'm lying down thinking that my back aches, I never learn that yoga is bad for me, and I should have listened to my physiotherapist 4 years ago and given up physical activity altogether. I'd be better off letting my body degenerate into the cripple it so longs to be, to paraphrase.
So the granola had had the right texture. Perfectly crispy and clustered. It looked right! But it wasn't. A clever façade...The walnuts were nice, and the dates themselves were good, but I need to apologize to both my recipe-giver and the recipe itself for my hubris. Bad cook (me), bad recipe (mine), slightly better but lacklustre granola (Eternally, mine).
So now I wonder, if I can't eat maple syrup and I am horrible at adjusting the recipe, how do I make good granola? Can I just give up on this recipe when I know it can be so good? Maybe it's not worth making granola. Does it make my life any better?
The yoga teacher talks very fast and it's stressful trying to keep up with him. I'm lying in corpse-pose wondering why I thought this was a good idea. I'm locked in a room for an hour and a half, not allowed to leave (they "strongly suggest" you don't), in pain, not calming down, not feeling better, not feeling like this will benefit my body, soul, chakras or qi in the least. There is no state of dehydrated bliss. No endorphins. Just self-loathing. I would be better off if I had never stepped foot in the studio. At this moment my teacher philosophically announces:
"The way you feel in the yoga studio is a reflection of the way you are in life."
...
Thus, if I am to believe him, I am "exhausted", "in pain", "stressed", "disappointed", and in a state of "self-loathing", wondering if I ever should have come into this world.
And then I laughed. Mildly violent shivers of laughter. Apparently I'm also cynical. Well, that's apt, which in turns makes the rest more believable. So I laughed harder.
Well I had to stop laughing somehow...I didn't want to disturb the class (That's something you're also "strongly suggested" not to do), and the only way to do that, was consider the concept of yoga studio as a microcosm of life. Did he mean that the way I feel emotionally while doing yoga is the attitude I hold in my everyday activities? Or the physical feelings (stiffness and range of motion) from the class are what we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis? Surely we can feel a wider range of emotions than what we do in class, and I certainly hope to not limit my feelings to masochistic or suicidal tendencies. As much as I wasn't allowed to leave that room, neither can I step out of life. I dealt with the frustrations of the class, but it is my choice to not go back. I certainly thought I would a get a bit of pleasure through yogic pain, but no. No more hot yoga. A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. Maybe I can't decide to quit life like I can quit yoga, but I can decide to not believe what one yoga teacher says, take my downward-dog-free karma, and eliminate a little bit of the self-torture from my life. The cynicism will stay, I suppose.
I'll take my anxiety, my gitters, and my irritability, thanks. I will get much more personal satisfaction from making maple-walnut granola with dried cranberries...properly...next time.
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