Homemade, Home-grown Lavender Gelato

I've been craving lavender gelato lately, and I finally got a few blooms on my lavender plants after a long rainy summer, so I made Domestic Daddy's lavender gelato recipe this week, adding a little purple food coloring to pretty it up.  Wasn't sure if my tiny amount of homegrown French lavender would work, because it called for dried culinary lavender, but holy cow---if the lavender taste was any stronger it would knock you over! I will let my nine-year-old, Ian, (who amazingly enough loved it) give you the final verdict:

1.  Lavender gelato: sounds disgusting but it's not

2.  Respect it: it's awesome!

3. Respect the maker because it's homemade.

So there you have it folks: respect me, respect my gelato!   ;-)

Simple homemade granola yogurt topping

This was today's little experiment.  I wanted some plain granola, simple granola topping for my yogurt---no raisins, no nuts, just sweet toasted oatmeal goodness.  Couldn't seem to find it at the grocery store, so I bought some oats and decided to make it myself.  This makes just enough for a week's worth of breakfast toppings, but I assume you could double it if you wanted.

1 cup rolled oats (not instant, the real kind)

1 T flour

1/8 cup brown sugar

4 T apple juice

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cooking oil 

cooking spray (to grease cookie sheet)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Mix all the dry ingredients together with a fork until well-blended.  Then add all the other ingredients and mix well.  Spread in a single layer on a greased cookie sheet and cook for about 30 minutes or until just slightly browned.  Allow to cool and dry for 30 minutes, then store in sealed container.

Yummy yogurt goodness!   :-)