Homemade Vanilla Almond Granola

Dateline: Thu 13 Aug. Ever since my big effort at weight loss back in 2018, I've undertaken a variety of habits and routines to try to maintain. For quite a few months or over the last year or so, my morning snack has been yogurt and granola. As long as I could find it reasonably priced, I didn't mind the storebought granola but I thought it was time to make my own. That's what happened near mid-August, while I was still home on summer break. What resulted was a terrific sheetpan of sweetened oat goodness with a healthy mix of sliced almonds. It's not quite the same, mind you, but it also has ingredients that I know about and can pronounce.

This experiment reminded me I'd tried making granola in bar form when I was in the first year of this weight management effort, and on that singular occasion, I thought I did all right, according to that blog post.

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"Vanilla Almond Granola," from Alyssa Adams of The Floral Apron. [Published 30 August 2023]

Meal No. 4172: Pimento Cheese Tomato Pie

Dateline: Wed 05 Aug. It was starting to feel like summer menus were about to get away from me and I’d not made a good tomato pie in a while. So that became my mission, after stocking up on tomatoes on a recent run to the market. And what better occasion to serve this than when Amy was here for her mid-week drop-in? We decided that the crust was awesome, the tomatoes were terrific, the pimento cheese portion was inspired, and the mix of parmesan and panko on top was better than more crust. The extra basil and diced scallions weren’t bit players, either. The simplicity of canned green beans beside it all made it feel like a complete plate, even though it was clear what the star of the meal was.

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Pulled together and based partially on “Tomato Pie,” by Lauren Allen of Tastes Better from Scratch. [Updated 05 July 2022 ]

Based loosely on ”Quick Roasted Tomatoes with Garlic and Thyme," from Suzy Karadsheh of The Mediterranean Dish. [First Published in 2015 / Updated 11 September 2020]

"South Carolina-Style Pimento Cheese." Recipe worked out by me, based on Sharon's Palmetto Pimento Cheese. [Published 23 October 2009]

”Cream Cheese Pie Crust," from Dan Langan of Baked by Dan. Originally found on Instagram. [Published 28 August 2024]

Meal No. 4168: Chick-Fil-A Dupe Sandwiches

Dateline: Sat 01 Aug. We welcomed August two Saturdays ago, with downtown busy and alive with patrons and supporters of the National Black Theatre Festival, albeit tempered by rain showers and overcast skies. Our municipal water crisis had mostly passed, and we were no longer under a “boil water” advisory. At dinnertime, I gave easily into the temptation of fried chicken fillet sandwiches, of which it was necessary to put away two all on my own.

I did have some delicious snacking opportunities earlier that day, by the way, which included homemade bread from neighbor Ashley, which I adorned with some wonderful quince jam brought all the way from Maine by my UNC buddy Kelly. What a treat!

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"Chick-Fil-A Dupe Sandwiches," from Drew Reilly of Dish with Drew. First spotted on Instagram. [Published 25 June 2026]

White Wine Coffee Cake

Dateline: Sun 26 July. Intentionally timed to be the final meal’s dessert before my brother-in-law wrapped up his summer visit, on the last Sunday of last month, we interrupted our movie watching to indulge in huge slices of white wine coffee cake. Originally brought to my attention in my youth, surrounded by the very many sweet old ladies of Buies Creek and thereabouts, this cake-mix-shortcut treat is hard to mess up and always proves pleasing. Plus: slices could be wrapped up to help Beau manage the long drive home the next day.

Meal No. 4142: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

Dateline: Sun 28 June. Breakfast for dinner ruled the evening for the final Sunday of June, and I leaned on my faithful buttermilk pancakes recipe for yet another excellent batch of those buggers. It was also a chance to break into my new mail-order jug of dark amber maple syrup, which proved to be an excellent coverer and sweet delight.

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"Best Tips for Making Pancakes: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes," by Joanne Ozug on the Pioneer Woman website. [Published 10 May 2017]

No Doubt: Thomases Hit the RoHo!

You'd have to harken back to those halcyon glory days of college life at Carolina to trace the roots of my friendship with Tim Thomas. We next found ourselves laboring a decade later towards our respective PhDs at the University of Virginia, and we enjoyed many a visit once he had the generous foresight to invite me to offer training when he was an administrator in Shenandoah County. He and his wife Laura and their younger daughter CeCe stopped here last Saturday morning on their way to the North Carolina mountains, and the timing could not have been better, given that Ebbie and Donna were here for their regular Camel City pilgimage.

Such a terrific visit for the whole crew of us, which had to be captured in the usual picture-taking spot in the front foyer. And it seemed like we ought to have a breakfast-y sweet treat to support our gathering at the table for visiting and conversation (even though Donna and Ebbie had already brought great goodies!) but then too did the Thomases arrive with additional treats from their stop at Camino Bakery just up the street. From my own oven I brought out a lemon loaf with a sweet lemon glaze, which generally has proven to be a hit here when I've been smart enough to do exactly what the recipe tells me. As Mondays go, this one was for the record books, all around.

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"The Best Lemon Loaf (Better-Than-Starbucks Copycat)," from Averie Sunshine of AverieCooks.com. [Published 15 March 2019 / Updated 16 May 2023]

Meal No. 4085: BFD! (Breakfast for Dinner)

Homemade buttermilk biscuits, creamy stone-ground grits, scrambled eggs with Swiss and Gruyère, and hot pork sausage patties: that's what made a dinner out of breakfast Friday a week ago, for three of us at the table. It was all pretty scrumptious: the eggs were cooked to just the right texture, the biscuits were tender and fluffy and soft, and that recipe for grits comes out perfect each time. (I do increase the butter and salt over what the recipe recommends.) The misery hit later, when I realized how over-full I felt, but future distress had no impact on the joy of consuming a pretty ideal BFD.

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"The Food Lab's Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Culinary Consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Published 07 August 2015 / Updated 19 December 2025]

Guidance from "How to Cook Sausage in the Oven," by Dan Mikesell (a/k/a DrDan) from 101 Cooking for Two. [Last Updated 29 November 2025]

Guidance for making the creamy grits: Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.

Meal No. 4066: Biscuits 'N Sausage Gravy

For last Thursday to be a non-workday for me, it was certainly fully scheduled. Dryer repair to start the day, taking my Camry for servicing, an 11:30 am phone appointment, a noon lunch with a fellow education colleague, picking up the Camry, folding laundry, and two different sets of UNC School of the Arts students (pictured below) tackling prep/tech visits for using the house as a filming location on a couple of upcoming weekends. Making dinner got squeezed into that, and an easy way to pull it off was to make biscuits and sausage gravy. These steaming bowls of savory southern goodness, with just a touch of heat, seemed to satisfy us just fine.

Meal No. 4064: Oatmeal for Dinner

It's already proving to be a pretty busy stretch of weeks and that is impacting my usual focus on meals. After my rushed trip to Richmond Monday and the long drive over to Vance County and back on Tuesday, the simple solution for sustenance Tuesday night was my longtime much-loved childhood go-to of oatmeal, boosted with brown sugar and extra cinnamon, and the unnecessary addition of small butter slabs. There's always a celebration if it's breakfast for dinner, no?

Meal No. 4062: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

A short overnight in Richmond is what started my week, but before hitting the road last Sunday I made a mid-day meal of buttermilk pancakes. They were accompanied by some leftover bacon from a couple of days prior, and this time I may have steadied my hand enough so as not to overdo the bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup that I poured over top. I'm sticking with this recipe, because it always pleases, even though I know I've got a collection of others that it would not hurt to try.

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"Best Tips for Making Pancakes: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes," by Joanne Ozug on the Pioneer Woman website. [Published 10 May 2017]

Meal No. 4057: Bacon Egg & Cheese Buttermilk Biscuits

Saturday was the final full day of Eastern Standard Time for the outgoing winter months, and extras were coming to dinner, which gave me the chance to use up some buttermilk and some bacon and to give in to a hankering for biscuits. The central feature: bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits, all from scratch. The biscuits were a bit malformed but still darned delicious, and it had been a while since I'd made chile-rubbed bacon in the oven. The baked scrambled eggs were light and fluffy and enhanced with a Swiss-and-Gruyère cheeses-to-pleases. It proved to be an unexpectedly filling meal, though, and we were all sort of miserable in a good way afterwards.

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"The Food Lab's Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe," from J. Kenji López-Alt, Culinary Consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Published 07 August 2015 / Updated 19 December 2025]

"Chile-Rubbed Bacon," by Rick Martinez. In "D.I.Y. B.L.T. O.M.G.: Bake Better Bacon (Upgrade Idea No. 1)," Bon Appétit, July 2016, p. 44.

"Baked Scrambled Eggs," from Heather Johnson of TheFoodHussy.com. [Published 09 September 2019 / Updated 08 February 2026]

Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Last week's Monday evening dinner of burgers still allowed for a fun little dessert to be served, and that night I went with an old-fashioned sour cream coffee cake. With strudel both as a middle layer and as a topping, and with thin but soft moist layers of sweet cake between, this breakfast cross-over proved pleasing and worthy of extras before the night was done.

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"Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Coffee Cake," from Marzia Aziz of the Little Spice Jar blog. [Published 11 April 2019 / Updated 26 January 2026]

Meal No. 4042: Tomato & Corn Pie

After a good full week of work in southern Georgia and after belatedly letting it catch my eye that this past Friday the 13th was also National Cheddar Day, I satisfied a menu craving and honored that occasion with tomato and corn pie for supper. Because I'm bringing ideas from several recipes together, the result always seems to vary just a bit but I'm also almost always pleased. With the exception of how the pieces absolutely fell apart as I tried to serve each slice, making for an unsightly presentation, it was still all really tasty. My beloved roasted broccoli florets were there as well, plus a smattering of Caesar-topped spring mix.

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Pulled together and based on the following evolving recipe history:

• "Tomato Pie," from the Swamp Rabbit Café in Greenville, SC.
• "Tomato and Corn Pie," from Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen. [Published 27 August 2009]
• "Tomato and Corn Pie," by Maggie Ruggiero in Gourmet, August 2009, p. 42-43. [Published Online 15 July 2009]
• "Quick Roasted Tomatoes with Garlic and Thyme," from Suzy Karadsheh of The Mediterranean Dish. [First Published in 2015 / Updated 11 September 2020]

Meal No. 4038: Bacon, Gruyère, & Caramelized Onion Quiche

Thursday a week ago was a chance for the beloved breakfast for dinner. I've become pretty fond of caramelizing onions, adding in finely chopped bacon, and building up the heartiness with a pretty good pile of shredded Gruyère. Once the egg and cream mixture gets poured over the top, this lovely quiche heads into the oven to cook to a creamy texture in just under 40 minutes. I also made a half-batch of blueberry muffins and had a heaping pile of fresh fruit, too.

Overnight and continuing into that morning, we got more snow. Not a ton: just a good dusting that measured maybe half and inch.

This has been quite a winter for us: an all-day sleet storm which left us with a one- to two-inch ice slab laid over every open surface; then a rare 8-inch snowfall a week later; and then even more snow a few days after that. The extended period of below-normal temps and even quite a bit of time in the teens is also not how it usually goes around here. But what's normal anymore? It's harder to predict when it's still unclear how climate change is going to increase the severity and wild swings of weather events.

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Recipe based on "Bacon and Caramelized Onion Quiche," from Mountain Mama Cooks.

"Perfect Blueberry Muffins," from Sue Moran of The View from Great Island. [Published 13 July 2021]

Meal No. 4011: Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

...and then it was Christmas, a bright sunny warm holiday with a quiet city and crows squawking: the absence of muss and dearth of fuss were among the best gifts of the day. At dinnertime I tried to make a menu wish come true: biscuits and sausage gravy. A bit too spicy, after an intended hot sauce shake was more akin to a glub, but that’s what tall glasses of water are for.

I thought it was awesome for Christmas Day to get up to 74°F here. The dogs loved it too.

And the officials at Piedmont Triad International Airport, just across the Guilford County line from here, tell us it was the warmest Christmas ever observed, reaching 75°F, breaking the previous record of 74°F that occurred in 1955 and 2015.

So all that pleasantness allowed for a pretty brisk walk midday through multiple neighborhoods, and then I got out the lawn mower to knock down all the monkey grass for winter. Who needs a White Christmas when there’s yard work that needs doing?

Meal No. 3987: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

I had a great day in Sampson County offering a session as part of their Assistant Principals Institute, back on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. They were energized and engaged, responsive and receptive, and I was thankful for that time with them. Ah, but it's almost three hours from here to there, so by the time I got home, I used the narrow dinner prep window as a perfectly good reason to make perfectly good buttermilk pancakes for dinner. I try not to overuse this convenient option when something quick is called for and then I'm always glad when that's what gets served up on the supper plates.

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"Best Tips for Making Pancakes: Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes," by Joanne Ozug on the Pioneer Woman website. [Published 10 May 2017]

Mid-Day Banana Bread

The off-year election day found me back at home from what was supposed to be a full week up in Virginia. But one of the schools needed to postpone and it gave me a chance to run back to Winston for two nights. So last Tuesday morning I put some ripe bananas to work for a couple of prized loaves of banana bread, which served as a sizable mid-day snack before I turned my attention to chores and errands.

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"Carolyn's Banana Bread," a recipe shared by former neighbor Lori Pilon.

Meal No. 3970: Bacon, Caramelized Onion, and Gruyère Quiche

When the time came to prepare one final meal before I packed and hit the road for the week, back on the final Sunday of October, the choice was a bacon, caramelized onion, and Gruyère quiche. It's a quick fix and a tasty outcome, and I had an abundance of fresh fruit to go with it. The flavors were not only on point, but it also had a near-perfect consistency.

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Recipe based on "Bacon and Caramelized Onion Quiche," from Mountain Mama Cooks.

Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll Cake

With its last appearance here going all the way back to a Halloween slumber party in 2016, Cinnabon cinnamon roll cake was the planned dessert when my UNC chum Kelly was here last Saturday morning. Alas, we were all too full from that breakfast grub so I saved it to snack on later. Ah, but it still proved a useful dessert the following afternoon when another dear UNC friend was here for a meal and hanging out. I botched the cake just a bit but it was still incredibly tempting and good.

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"Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll Cake," by Alyssa Rivers and first found at The Recipe Critic in July 2012. [Recipe Updated 16 August 2023]

Meal No. 3962: Breakfast for Brother Clark

Last Saturday saw the return of the great Kelly Clark to the Roediger House. A true chum when we were fellow undergraduates and Journalism majors at the University of North Carolina, Kelly makes regularly trips to the area to look in on his folks and, when possible, he generously builds in a visit over here to Winston-Salem. We had to make it a morning meet-up so it had to be breakfast: sous vide bacon, Swiss, and chive egg bites; creamy Southern stone-ground grits; blueberry muffins; and plenty of fresh fruit. We were too full for the dessert I also put together so that will be blogged about later. It's always a pleasure to get time with Kelly.

I made sure departed with the two specimens I'd snagged for him to go with an exhibit he's preparing back home in Maine: the cicada killer wasp and also this healthy praying mantis that almost fell into my lap. Kelly had mentioned both of these from his wish list for display but hadn't gotten ahold of any yet, so I'd been on the look-out.

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Based on "How to Sous Vide Egg Bites at Home," from Jenna Passaro of SipBiteGo.com. [Published 08 July 2021 / Modified 31 August 2021]

"Perfect Blueberry Muffins," from Sue Moran of The View from Great Island. [Published 13 July 2021]

Guidance for making the creamy grits: Luquire Family Stone Ground Grits, milled in Greenwood, SC.