Despite living near multiple health-food stores, I’ve been having trouble finding decent granola. (For breakfast lately, I’ve been eating granola, plain yogurt and berries.) I like it crunchy, with lots of seeds, but too often the stuff you get in the store is halfway to being flavored oatmeal, mostly just refined oats and various natural versions of sugar.
Tonight’s project involved a can of steel-cut Irish oatmeal, flax and sesame seeds, wheat germ, and various natural versions of sugar (brown sugar, maple syrup, and molasses). It came out very well, which is a good thing because I ended up making a LOT of it. Kind of the balancing-the-table-legs problem in reverse; starting with a full can of oatmeal meant adding LOTS of the other stuff.
Uncharacteristically (for cooking, at least) I documented the process.
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Granola Ingredients Lined up on the counter. Not pictured: maple syrup, canola oil, cinnamon, vanilla, salt and brown sugar. On far left is the crappy store-bought granola that inspired this project. |
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Dry Ingredients The dry ingredients, mixed up in the largest mixing bowl I own. |
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The Not-Dry Ingredients Heat but do not boil. |
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Ready For the Oven This is a LOT of granola. |
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Ready To Eat After 45 minutes at 300 degrees with stirring every 15 minutes, and addition of raisins during the last stir. |
Notes for next time:
- Toast the seeds first.
- Add pumpkin and/or sunflower seeds.
- More wheat germ (the “mortar”).
- More coconut.
- More raisins.
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