Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Granola Recipe

We've relocated downtown. Hooray! And I know I'm finally getting settled in because this morning we had homemade yogurt and granola for breakfast. Here's my favorite granola recipe:

4 cups rolled oats (not quick oats)
1 teaspoon cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla, maple or almond extract

1 cup raw nuts roughly chopped
1 cup dried fruit (chopped if using big pieces like apricots, mango slices, or dates)

Preheat oven to 300.
Combine oats and spices in a large bowl.
In a small saucepan heat next 4 ingredients just until it starts to simmer. (If you boil honey, the proteins solidify into a yucky brown scum, so don't let it boil.) Add the vanilla or other flavoring to the syrup.
Drizzle syrup over oats and stir well to coat. Stir in the nuts.

Bake on a greased large rimmed baking sheet for 15 minutes--do not use an enameled roasting pan, it holds heat too well and burns the edges. Turn and stir the mix with a spatula. Reduce oven temperature to 275 and continue baking for 25-30 minutes, stirring after 15 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with dried fruit.

If you like chunks in your granola, do not stir when you remove it from the oven the final time. Just press all over the top with your spatula. If you want all of the little oats separate from each other, stir it when it comes out of the oven and again after 10 minutes of cooling. When the granola is completely cool, store in an airtight container.

Optional ingredients:
Flaked coconut, wheat germ, wheat or oat bran, 1/2 cup, mix with oats at the beginning
Pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds (raw), 1/4 - 1 cup, add with or instead of the nuts
M&M's or chocolate chips, 1/2 - 1 cup with fruit (at which point I cease to consider this a breakfast cereal)

I like to vary the spices, extracts, nuts and fruits for different flavors of granola. Here are some of my favorites:

Oatmeal Cookie
cinnamon, oat bran, vanilla, walnuts, raisins

Maple Pecan
1/2 tsp. cinnamon, maple syrup, maple extract, pecans, no fruit

Tropical
ground ginger, coconut, vanilla, cashews, papaya, mango

Banana Nut Bread
cinnamon and nutmeg, wheat germ, vanilla, walnuts, dried banana (the chewy kind, not banana chips)

1 comment:

Dorothy Marner said...

Hooray, the wait is over and surely worth it! I'm glad you're settled in enough to post a recipe and am looking forward to trying it. Thanks for sharing!