What’d You Do Last Weekend?
Heading to a party where there will be lots of wine, and not sure what to take? How about some simple savory cookies - biscotti and sables made for wine pairing?
Homemade Granola
Do you remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? I had tons of them as a kid, and like everyone else I know, I read them over and over again, hoping for new outcomes no matter how I chose. I liked the seemingly endless variety, and perhaps a little too much the lack of consequence of changing my mind mid-stream. But those books stuck with me, and I was walking through Kalustyan's on Lexington years later when I had reason to think of them again.
I was looking at the bins of pistachios and I thought about how different Turkish and Persian pistachios taste, and how I might like one kind in baklava, and perhaps another kind as a cocktail nut. A lightbulb went off. I thought to myself, 'Choose Your Own Adventure Food!' My concept was simple - folks could devise their preferred combinations for things like granola, trail mix and cereal. Bulk bins were notoriously absent in New York, even at Whole Foods. Wouldn't it be nice for people to specify exactly what kind of pistachios they might want in their food, and to get it delivered right to their door via nice mail order? That would be great for those non-bulk bin places, and even better for peeps with allergy-laden kids.
Alas, it was just an idea and it was fraught with issues. Where would you store ingredients so you didn't get bugs, especially grain moths that I detest? And what about those premium ingredients? Wouldn't the turnover be much lower on those, so the chance of spoilage (and therefore cost) go up? And I found it incredibly difficult to receive packages when I lived in a walk-up. Sometimes the mail person would come at 8am, other times 6pm, sometimes they didn't feel like leaving packages, sometimes they left them outside where they were swiped in an instant.
I left Choose Your Own Adventure Foods behind as an adventure not chosen.
I thought of that wistfully as I made my own granola recently from a trick I learned in one of Olaiya Land's classes. I made a few modifications to the recipe based on what I had in the house, but I must say it stoked those adventure food fires again when my friends asked me if I could make them granola too. I know better. I'm sharing my recipe with them instead.
Homemade Granola
Dry Ingredients
5 c rolled oats (not instant oats)
2 c raw pecan halves
1 c almond slivers
3/4 c light brown sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp powdered orange peel
1 tsp kosher salt
Wet Ingredients
3/4 c unsweetened apple sauce
1/3 c agave syrup
1/4 c honey
2 T light flavored oil (such as vegetable, safflower, or canola)
1/2 c flax seeds
1+1/2 - 2 c freeze-dried blueberries
- Preheat the oven to 300F and set the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
- In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients and stir well to combine
- In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Use a whisk to make sure they are well mixed.
- Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir very well.
- Spread the mixture evenly over two parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
- Bake 35 - 40 minutes, stirring the entire mixture every 10 minutes.
Note: You may want to set a timer to remind you because these will brown quickly if they are not turned. - Remove the pans from the oven and stir well.
- Set the pans on cooling racks and allow to cool overnight.
- When the pans and granola are completely cool, stir in the blueberries and flax seeds and place all of the cereal in a large airtight container.
Yield: About 10 cups
My notes:
- I made dehydrated orange zest by cutting the peel off a few oranges and carefully cutting out all of the white pith on the zest. From there, I put the pieces into a food dehydrator and dried them overnight or until they were crispy. I ground them in a spice grinder and kept the extra in an airtight container in the freezer.
- I made my own applesauce for this recipe, and it was a little chunkier than I intended. When the granola was completely cool, I picked through it for chunky apple clusters and removed them because I thought they would make the rest of the cereal soggy.
- You may hear that you shouldn't bake the flax seeds because it destroys the Omega-3 fats, but this turns out to be a myth. They could be added right along with the dry ingredients.
- You can replace the agave syrup with brown rice syrup, but you want to make sure not to replace all the liquid with honey. The granola will be overpoweringly sweet if you do that.
- I used freeze-dried blueberries because they taste great and they turn your milk blue naturally. I don't care for the texture of dried fruit in my cereal, but you can certainly use that if you have (and prefer) it.
- Substitute any kind of nut you want and any kind of fruit - or choose to leave them out. But keep your oats there and your liquids. That's what really holds your granola together.
More Info
Molly's Everyday Granola
Comments
Love homemade granola!
I make batches of granola at home all the time, but I'm always looking for ways to switch this up. I tend to use a mix of honey and maple syrup,but will definitely need to give agave nectar a go!
Loved choose your own
Loved choose your own adventure books! Love this recipe and super love your new logo Jenny!
Melissa
Homemade granola is so great
Homemade granola is so great because you can customize it however you want AND it's a great pantry-buster. I made some a few days ago with oats, peanuts, almonds, pecans, wheat germ, oat bran, sesame seeds, flax seeds, and I would have added millet if I had any. I use honey and molasses, vanilla and cinnamon. Then I mix in dried cranberries at the end. Served over yogurt? Win.
I did manage to burn a batch once and that was supremely disappointing.
Someone has come up with custom-ordered granola though: http://www.mixmygranola.com/