resetting the kitchen for a new year

+ recipes for baklava inspired granola and rose water red berry jam

hey hi hello,

Welcome baaaack!!

I moved twice this year, the second time being within this last month. With the move I finally did two things I’ve been putting off for a while. Big one was setting up proper work flows for developing recipes for Substack/socials. It’s something I’ve been meaning to set up for uuuuuh two years now, but with other consulting projects etc etc finding the time to develop recipes for you guys was a big enough juggle, but optimizing it was a whole other obstacle. Which is honestly ironic because a big part of my work as a consultant it setting up SOPs and sensible work flows for bakeries. But, I’ve always been better at sorting through other people’s chaos over mine. I’m not running into 2026 with any hard projects on the calendar as of now, which is something that will probably change in about a week but, that gave me the space and grace to work on bake chats things + sort out what I think I’d like to focus on in the New Year. Basically time blocking my daily/weekly calendar and setting up a very organized system for my at home test kitchen. Which let’s face it might only stay organized till about Valentine’s day before it needs to be re-evaluated.

The second thing I was able to tackle in these last few weeks has been pantry inventory! fun fun fun. Over the past year I accumulated over 150 pantry ingredients… woes of being a recipe developer and tester I suppose. Some of the ingredients were things I used for recipes shared here over the course of the year. But, I also tested recipe for 3 cookbooks (they’re a. not my books and b. will be coming out in 2027). When I have a recipe testing job for a cookbook or otherwise, I try my best to buy juuuust what I need for the recipes + tests, bulk bins are my BEST friends. Even then, I end up with just over and those bits &. bobs of ingredients make their way to the back of the pantry as I move on to new recipes and projects.

I entered every last ingredient in my pantry into a spread sheet along with how much is in stock. It’s nothing fancy. The real beauty in this is, I have Google sheets on my phone too, so when I’m out grocery shopping I can refer to it as needed. I’m the queen of seeing a bag of oats and thinking I need more then coming home to two half used bags already taking up space.

I wanted to clear space for all the projects and recipes to come in the new year. There is really no better pantry clear out than making granola. Because the beauty of granola is that you can truly put whatever you want in there. Obvi a big ole base of rolled outs, but then any nut, seed, puffed grain, or dried fruit you have works here. The “sauce” is also supes versatile, ya basically just need fat and sugar. The fat can range from butter, to olive oil, to something more neutral like canola or avocado oils. The sweeteners can be honey, maple syrup, brown sugar, agave, whatever you have on hand.

My other fridge + pantry clear out tactic includes making jams. Over the course of a few months, I’ll wash and freeze any bits of fruit I never got around to eating. Once I have enough saved up, I’ll use whatever I have to make jam. I had a few bottles of orange blossom and rose water in the pantry, so felt orange blossomy granola + rose water red berry jam were he way to go.

Granola making is also one of the few times where I opt for volume over weight measurements, for this ratios sake, just because you can be so free with what you want to put in here. Oats make up the bulk of granola, but I’ll sometimes throw a puffed grain in as well to replace some of the oats and lighten the granola up, but swapping 100 grams of oats for 100 grams of puffed millet is an insane volumetric difference, then you wont have enough of the sauce to coat everything ya know what I’m saying?

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BAKLAVA INSPIRED GRANOLA

*This post has a few affiliate links, which if you click and purchase from I receive compensation at no additional cost to you*

The flavors of this granola are heavily baklava inspired with the addition or the orange blossom water, honey, walnuts and pistachios. It’s all stuff I had on hand that drove the flavor decision of this batch of granola. As mentioned the beauty of granola is how absolutely customizable it is. If you don’t have pistachios, use all walnuts. Only have pecans in your pantry? Use that instead. As long as you have roughly 4 cups of the oats/grains + 2-3 cups of the additional nuts and seeds you should be golden.

I like adding puffed grains to granola to lighten the whole thing up but you can totally do all oats if that’s what you have. As for the egg whites, they’re there to give the granola light crunch and help form more clusters. They’re totally optional and can be left out, I just also in addition to a pantry full of stuff, have tons of egg whites to work through.

TOOLS

• Digital scale

• Cup measures

• 2 half sheet pans

• Pre-cut parchment sheets

• Mixing bowls

• Medium saucepan

• Whisk

• Rubber spatula

• Air tight storage container(s)

• Food grade desicant packs

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups rolled oats (220 grams)

• 1 cup puffed rice cereal (30 grams)

• 1 cup puffed millet (30 grams)

• 1/2 cup walnuts- whole if you like that, chopped if you don’t (75ish grams)

• 1/2 cup pistachios- chopped or whole, however ya like ‘em (75ish grams)

• 1/4 cup flax seeds (25 grams)

• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds (50ish grams)

• 1/2 cup pepitas (75ish grams)

THE SAUCE

• 175 grams honey, I like to use avocado honey here

• 80 grams orange blossom water

• 10 grams orange zest, approx 2 large oranges worth

• 1 tablespoon ground royal cinnamon

• 3/4 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt

• 150 grams avocado oil

• 2 large egg whites (60 grams)

AFTER BAKE

• 1/2 cup dried cherries

• 1/2 cup hemp hearts

DIRECTIONS

1. PREHEAT the oven to 325F. Line two half sheet pans with parchment and set aside.

2. In a large bowl combine, 2 cups rolled oats, 1 cup puffed rice cereal, 1 cup puffed millet, 1/2 cup walnuts, 1/2 cup pistachios, 1/4 cup flax seeds, 1/4 cup sunflower seeds and 1/2 cup pepitas. Use your hands or a spatula to evenly toss and combine everything. Set aside.

3. Add the 175 grams of honey to a medium saucepan, placing it over medium heat.

4. The honey will start to bubble and deepen in color as it begins to caramelize. Swirl the pan every so often. Cook until deep amber and toasty and fragrant. About 5-7 minutes.

5. Once the honey has toasted remove from the heat and immediately add in 80 grams of orange blossom water, 10 grams of orange zest, 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt and 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon. Followed by the 150 grams avocado oil. Swirling to combine and setting aside.

6. In a small bowl, use a whisk to gentle froth 2 large egg whites until they’re full white and bubbled with no goopy bits of egg white at the bottom of the bowl.

7. Pour the honey orange blossom water sauce over the oat, nut mixture and use a rubber spatula to fold and evenly coat everything. Once coated, follow up with the frothed egg whites, tossing to evenly coat.

8. Evenly divide the granola between the two prepared sheet pans.

9. BAKE the granola for 45 minutes to an hour. Every 10-15 minutes you’ll take the granola out of the oven and use a rubber spatula to toss the granola to ensure even baking.

10. Once the granola is nice and golden brown you’ll remove it from the oven to cool. At this point sprinkle the 1/2 cup dried cherries and 1/2 cup hemp hearts over the warm granola.

11. You’ll want to leave the granola untouched as it cools if you want larger granola clusters. If you like your granola in more individualized pieced, you can move the granola around as it cools with a rubber spatula every few minutes, breaking the pieces up.

12. Once completely cooled store in an air tight container. To preserve longevity of the granola use food safe desiccants to wick away moisture.

13. ENJOY over a bowl of yogurt and berries xx

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ROSE WATER RED BERRY JAM

Once again the beauty of this jam is how you can get away with any frozen berry here. Blackberries could easily replace one or both of the red berries here, cherries too. I just happened to have a freezer full of raspberries and strawbs.

With Valentine’s day approaching, this jam will be making a few more appearances in future recipes to give you an idea of other ways to use jam that aren’t just on toast.