Food stuff

My new favorite breakfast. Delicious, and it reminds me of visits to our friends who live in the Netherlands. I'm a serious yogurt snob, and I only buy plain Greek-style yogurt because it's closest to European yogurt (the only real yogurt, in my opinion). This muesli is amazing with that yogurt and apples or halved grapes, a few dried cranberries, etc. You could probably use regular or flavored yogurt as well.


Agave nectar. We've tried it in my favorite cookies now, as well as Nigella's banana bread. Fantastic. I recommend it, but be sure to watch your cooking times and add about 30% less than the sugar usually used in the recipe you're making. It's so much healthier for you and doesn't really alter the taste at all, in my opinion. You can find it in natural food stores as well as Trader Joe's and even some local groceries.


Alice Waters' newest cookbook, The Art of Simple Food. This one I'll be adding to my bookshelf. I love it because it explains each step in detail so you know what to expect and why the process works. I'm much more confident about making souffles, salad dressings, and other "basics" of cooking now that I've read this book. Plus, there are a bunch more recipes in the second half of the book that build on those fundamentals. I couldn't renew this book from the library any more and was really sorry to return it.

The Slow Cooker book was interesting, too. I had never considered making fondue in our crockpot, but we certainly don't have room for other contraptions in our small kitchen, and the fondue is really quite tasty and easy to make. I don't recommend the ice cream recipe, however. It was odd, to say the least. I think we made a few other recipes from this book as well, but the fondue was by far my favorite.