Granola

One thing that has helped us on countless mornings? Granola! GRANOLA! I had loved the Quaker Oats boxed stuff for years. And then there was the granola from the local bulk food store. And then, one day about 15 years ago, we decided that perhaps we could make our own so we always have it on hand. Yes. I know pretty much everyone who makes granola has their own special way of making it. It’s as individual as finger prints, snow flakes or coffee orders! So, take this as a map instead of a recipe and do what makes you happy!

Some TIPS to make life so much easier:

*At least a little bit of water (some recipes I’ve seen call for a lot of water) helps your liquid ingredients to coat the oats/nuts/seeds.

*if you want to add dried fruit, add it AFTER your granola has baked (or the dried fruit gets VERY HARD and GROSS).

*Stir often. Take a peek at your granola every 15 - 20 minutes (some suggest every 5 minutes but that’s pretty nutty! I don’t want to work that hard.) and give it a good stir each time, so that every little oat gets its fair share of baking time.

*Keep playing with the ingredients until you find YOUR perfect. Cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger powder, maple syrup, desiccated coconut, nuts, seeds, unicorn tears… whatever floats your boat!

*Cooking time: really this depends on how shallow or deep the granola is in your pan. My pan is a canning pot and there’s not a lot of room for the granola to spread out. It often takes over an hour for the granola to get evenly browned, with me stirring it every 15 minutes.

GRANOLA

Makes 14 cups

Preheat oven to 325 C. (I used to preheat our cooker to 300 (hot stove) and then 325 (not so hot stove) and now I preheat to 350 C… At some point we’ll save up to get our cooker calibrated properly!)

Using a nice big pan like a roasting pan - we use a canning pot (it was on sale!) measure 10 cups of oats and 4 more cups of nuts/seeds; anything you have on hand really. Sometimes when I only have oats, I just do 10 cups of oats - about what you’d find in a bag at the supermarket!

Mix together.

Using a small saucepan on low/medium heat melt veggie oil or grapeseed oil, honey or syrup, brown sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Once you have your saucepan ingredients together take your pan of syrup and put it under the tap for just a splash of water to help coat the dry ingredients. If you want to add some nut butter when your fats and sugars are getting all melty that’s going to be delicious - just keep in mind that it might not really melt very well, but it will give your granola some nice chunky bits!

When bubbles start to form at the edges of your syrup mixture, poor it over your dry ingredients. Stir thoroughly and make sure everything is evenly coated.

Place in oven for 45 - 55 minutes or until evenly browned. KEEP CHECKING IT at 10 - 15 minute intervals and give it a good stir each time to make sure everything is cooked evenly.

INGREDIENTS

10 C of rolled oats (NOT QUICK OATS)

4 C mixed nuts/seeds

12 TBS of veggie oil or grapeseed oil

2/3 C of honey or maple syrup or Lyles Golden Syrup

8 TBS brown sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

1 pinch of salt

1 quick splash of water

COOKING TIME: 45 - 55 minutes or until it’s an even toasty light brown (it takes me 65 minutes - see TIPS above).

STORE: Once cooled, store in a cool dry place in a tightly sealed container. We use enormous glass jars with lids, but ziplock bags will do well too.

We finish our granola pretty quickly - we usually eat it over the course of a week or two - but I’m pretty sure you can freeze it in an air tight container for a month if you need to.

Let us know if you try this recipe! What changes did you make?