Sponsor Spotlight - The Best of This Life

Happy hump day! This morning I am so excited to share with you one of my sweet sponsors, The Best of This Life! She makes the most amazing gluten-free recipes and serves up some serious eye candy with her food photography! If you haven't checked her out yet, you must! Today she is doing something a little special for us - Recipe to Decor!

  
Hi everyone! I'm Emily from The Best of this Life, a food and lifestyle blog. I'm so happy to be here today to share with you one of my favorite easy and healthy recipes, along with the details for a fresh Spring table decor. A little background about me: I was diagnosed with gluten intolerance over 10 years ago and have since then created lots of recipes that are easy and as close to the real deal (gluten full) as possible.  I started baking gluten-free for one reason, and now I couldn't imagine not using delicious, nutrient rich flours, like buckwheat, brown rice, teff, and others instead of bleached white flour. Along with lots of gluten-free recipes, on my blog I share essentials boards (including home, style, kitchen, entertaining and baby), visual inspirations, ideas for entertaining, product reviews, and anecdotes from my life.

The recipe I'm sharing with you today is a hearty granola, which is an ideal replacement for store bought cereal!

Homemade Granola with Cranberries, Almonds, and Dark Chocolate

Makes 6 servings

2 1/2 cups gluten-free oats

1/2 cup gluten-free oat flour

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1/4 cup firmly packed muscovado sugar 

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup coconut oil (in solid form)

1/2 cup dried cranberries (sweetened with applejuice)

1/3 cup crushed almonds (you can buy or diy: put almonds in a bag and crush using a rolling pin)

1/2 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, Gluten & Dairy-Free

Note: you can really add whatever ingredients you fancy - I'm looking forward to trying pumpkin seeds, raisins, walnuts, and dried cherries.

1. In a large bowl combine oats, flour, cinnamon, crushed almonds and cranberries - set aside.
2. In a medium sauce pan, on medium heat, combine coconut oil, honey, and sugar. Stir until melted and completely blended.
3. Pour over dry mixture and stir gently.
4. Let the wet mixture cover the dry mix until it forms little clusters.
5. Grease two large baking sheets with coconut oil. Spread granola mixture evenly.
6. Bake in the oven at 175 F for 1 hour.
7. After the baking time is done, turn off the heat, let the granola sit for another 30 minutes in the oven.  
8. Pull out of the oven, it may still be warm, let cool completely before adding the dark chocolate chips (you can sprinkle them on top of spread out granola for even distribution or add into the storage container afterwards.)
9. Transfer to air tight container for storing.
10. Enjoy with your favorite milk (we had ours with unsweetened almond milk), over yogourt, or by itself! Yum :)

Decor Details

I love when a breakfast table is uncluttered, fresh, and airy.  The light from a new day is coming in and all you really need is a few bright flowers, a fresh pot of coffee, and a scrumptious bowl of granola :)

1. Lilac cereal bowl from IKEA
2. Creamer and sugar bowl from Pottery Barn
3. Flower patterned placemat from IKEA
4. Biodegradable plastic spoons from Shop Sweet Lulu
5. Pink peonies from Country Living

And voilà, just like that you have a gorgeous spread that insists you never skip breakfast again!

Thanks so much, Emily! That granola looks delicious! I will definitely be making up a batch to munch on for breakfast :)

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor of SSE, please shoot me an e-mail!

Don't forget to head back over for happy hour at 3! This week's drink is going to be so good!!