I realized that my organized life of cooking relies on the fact that my husband does not usually work late, my kid is not usually sick, and I do not usually spend weekends out of town. Combine all these three variables and I find myself eating ice cream out of the freezer on a tablespoon for supper.
This week, being one of those weeks, I forced myself to steal away an hour or so to make up a big batch of homemade granola, so at least when I'm faced with unpredictabilities in life I can sit down to a healthy snack once in a while. or for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I found even the process of making this up was therapy to me...playing with a traditional recipe and testing the bubbling hot syrup on the stove, then pouring it in the big punch bowl full of oats. stirring by hand and "snitching" the uncooked oats coated in sweet deliciousness. inhaling the homey smell as it baked in the oven.
Granola is so fun to play with, you can make it 100 different ways.
This was adapted from the more-with-less cookbook, the recipe for Koinonia Granola...
preheat oven to 350
wet ingredients:
melt together in a saucepan:
1/2 cup oil
1/2 lb margarine
2 T molasses
1 T Vanilla (or any type of extract- maple, almond...)
1 C brown sugar
1 C honey, (or corn syrup, or 1/2 and 1/2)
1/2 t salt
when mixed, let it cool slightly and pour it over the dry ingredients:
about 6 cups of rolled oats
2 cups whole wheat flour
and however much you want of any of the following:
raisins
dried cranberries
shelled sunflower seeds
almonds
coconut
wheat germ
flax seeds
pumpkin seeds
have fun with spices! i like to add lots of cinnamon.
when wet and dry ingredients are mixed together,
spread out thinly on greased cookie sheets and bake for 20-30 minutes. peer in every 7-10 minutes or so and mix the granola around to dry it out evenly and make sure it's not burning.
when the granola is nice and brown and all dried out, take out of the oven to cool. combine it in a large bowl as this recipe makes about 4 pan-fulls. as each pan comes out of the oven, dump it into a big metal bowl and stir it around. it will start to get its crunchy texture as it cools. put your face over the warm steaming bowl and smellllll.....take a deep breath.
enjoy with plain yogurt and a dab of jam, and some fresh fruit if you please!
