Fellowship Granola Recipe and Photos
And thus I continue to turn my LJ into a recipe blog.
Anyway. I have been very busy baking cookies and such, and perhaps I will share more about that later. First, though, here is how I make granola. Because I make fan-tucking-fastic granola, if I do say so myself. It's my own recipe, modified somewhat from another family favorite, and I love it.
The recipe below makes a huge batch that my family manages to eat in less than a month. It's a very hearty, satisfying cereal--a bowl of this with almond or soy milk will keep me from getting the munchies for many hours. Good for avoiding those donuts at work.
Though it has sugar in it, it doesn't bother my hypoglycemia, probably because it also has plenty of complex carbs, protein, fiber, and fat. According to my calculations, this recipe costs us between thirteen and fourteen dollars in materials, but we do buy a lot of our food in bulk at a health food-type store. You can half or quarter the recipe for a smaller family, and the ingredients are flexible.
So, I share with you my secret learnings. There are three secrets to making great granola: a great recipe (see below), mixing all of the ingredients very well (not as easy as it might seem), and baking it evenly.
Fellowship Granola
Based on "Koinonia Granola" from More-with-Less Cookbook
First, wet ingredients:
1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup butter (I don't believe in margarine, which is what the original recipe called for)
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
Put it all in a glass bowl and heat in the microwave for about five minutes. I find it helpful to use a 1/2 cup measuring glass to measure the oil first, then using the same glass to measure the molasses and honey. Helps the sticky stuff to slide right out.
While it's heating, mix the dry ingredients in a big roasting pan.
2 lb. rolled oats (that's a whole cylinder)
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons flax seeds
1 1/2 cups chopped nuts (blanched, slivered almonds are excellent)
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 lb shredded coconut
3/4 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup oat bran
I use the same 1/2 cup measuring glass to measure all of this (after washing and drying it). When all the ingredients are in the pan, I just mix it up with my hands, being careful not to spill. It's a lot of material.
Note: Don't use any more than this proportion of flax seeds. In my last batch we were short on sesame seeds, so I put in some extra flax, and you can really taste it. It overpowers the other good flavors really easily. Also, Mom thinks maybe we should start grinding the flax seeds up to get more nutrition value from them, instead of just dumping them in whole. Worth considering.
When the wet ingredients come out of the microwave after five minutes, it will look really gross, with the butter clumped up and floating on top and stuff. Nothing to worry about. Just mix it with a spoon until the butter is incorporated with the sugar. It will take awhile, but in the end the mixture should have the consistency of caramel. (It will smell strongly of molasses, though.) I think doing this step is what makes my granola so much better than when my mom makes it. She would just mix it all up in the big pan, and it was never quite as good as mine.
Next, drizzle the wet ingredients over the dry, trying to spread it out over the whole pan. Then mix it all up with the spoon. I like to stir it in sections a little bit at a time.
(That's my sister stirring it in the picture.) When the granola is all uniformly sticky, it's ready to bake.
Split it into two roasting pans and bake in a 350 degree oven. I bake it for 35 minutes, stirring at every seven and rotating the pans between the racks at fourteen. Stirring keeps it from clumping up, and rotating the pans makes it all bake evenly. The original recipe called for 25-30 minutes, but I like to bake it a little longer for that extra crunchy brown doneness.
Isn't that gorgeous? Stir it again when you take it out of the oven and a few times while it's cooling. It won't kill the granola if you don't (or you could also spread it out on wax paper or something), but that's the easiest way for me to keep it from clumping.
When it's cool, put it all back in one pan and add:
2 cups dried cranberries
And you're done! Keep it in an airtight container and eat it over yogurt and fruit, with milk, on ice cream, or just by itself for that tasty, wholesome crunch. Delicious!
Like I said, the ingredients are flexible. You can skip the flax seeds if you want. If you're allergic to wheat, you could just use a cup of oat bran. Or, vice versa, skip the oat bran if you don't know where to find it, etc. We cut back on the sugar in the original recipe because it was just a little much, and as I keep cooking more and more low- and no-sugar recipes in this house, perhaps my family will eventually accept an alternative sweetener, or even none. You can use any kind of chopped nuts or fruit. (My dad really liked the time I made my smaller batch with Brazil nuts, though that always tasted a little strange to me.) The original recipe called for two cups of Grape Nuts, and no pumpkin seeds or oat bran. There are also lots of other granola recipes--I liked a sugar-free peanut butter granola I tried not long ago.
And thus ends today's ruminations. Perhaps I will again talk about fannish things someday. Wait and see. For now, there will probably be more recipes. I love to bake, and it's one of the happiest things in my life right now.
Anyway. I have been very busy baking cookies and such, and perhaps I will share more about that later. First, though, here is how I make granola. Because I make fan-tucking-fastic granola, if I do say so myself. It's my own recipe, modified somewhat from another family favorite, and I love it.
The recipe below makes a huge batch that my family manages to eat in less than a month. It's a very hearty, satisfying cereal--a bowl of this with almond or soy milk will keep me from getting the munchies for many hours. Good for avoiding those donuts at work.
Though it has sugar in it, it doesn't bother my hypoglycemia, probably because it also has plenty of complex carbs, protein, fiber, and fat. According to my calculations, this recipe costs us between thirteen and fourteen dollars in materials, but we do buy a lot of our food in bulk at a health food-type store. You can half or quarter the recipe for a smaller family, and the ingredients are flexible.
So, I share with you my secret learnings. There are three secrets to making great granola: a great recipe (see below), mixing all of the ingredients very well (not as easy as it might seem), and baking it evenly.
Fellowship Granola
Based on "Koinonia Granola" from More-with-Less Cookbook
First, wet ingredients:
1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup butter (I don't believe in margarine, which is what the original recipe called for)
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
Put it all in a glass bowl and heat in the microwave for about five minutes. I find it helpful to use a 1/2 cup measuring glass to measure the oil first, then using the same glass to measure the molasses and honey. Helps the sticky stuff to slide right out.
While it's heating, mix the dry ingredients in a big roasting pan.
2 lb. rolled oats (that's a whole cylinder)
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons flax seeds
1 1/2 cups chopped nuts (blanched, slivered almonds are excellent)
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 lb shredded coconut
3/4 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup oat bran
I use the same 1/2 cup measuring glass to measure all of this (after washing and drying it). When all the ingredients are in the pan, I just mix it up with my hands, being careful not to spill. It's a lot of material.
Note: Don't use any more than this proportion of flax seeds. In my last batch we were short on sesame seeds, so I put in some extra flax, and you can really taste it. It overpowers the other good flavors really easily. Also, Mom thinks maybe we should start grinding the flax seeds up to get more nutrition value from them, instead of just dumping them in whole. Worth considering.
When the wet ingredients come out of the microwave after five minutes, it will look really gross, with the butter clumped up and floating on top and stuff. Nothing to worry about. Just mix it with a spoon until the butter is incorporated with the sugar. It will take awhile, but in the end the mixture should have the consistency of caramel. (It will smell strongly of molasses, though.) I think doing this step is what makes my granola so much better than when my mom makes it. She would just mix it all up in the big pan, and it was never quite as good as mine.
Next, drizzle the wet ingredients over the dry, trying to spread it out over the whole pan. Then mix it all up with the spoon. I like to stir it in sections a little bit at a time.
(That's my sister stirring it in the picture.) When the granola is all uniformly sticky, it's ready to bake.
Split it into two roasting pans and bake in a 350 degree oven. I bake it for 35 minutes, stirring at every seven and rotating the pans between the racks at fourteen. Stirring keeps it from clumping up, and rotating the pans makes it all bake evenly. The original recipe called for 25-30 minutes, but I like to bake it a little longer for that extra crunchy brown doneness.
Isn't that gorgeous? Stir it again when you take it out of the oven and a few times while it's cooling. It won't kill the granola if you don't (or you could also spread it out on wax paper or something), but that's the easiest way for me to keep it from clumping.
When it's cool, put it all back in one pan and add:
2 cups dried cranberries
And you're done! Keep it in an airtight container and eat it over yogurt and fruit, with milk, on ice cream, or just by itself for that tasty, wholesome crunch. Delicious!
Like I said, the ingredients are flexible. You can skip the flax seeds if you want. If you're allergic to wheat, you could just use a cup of oat bran. Or, vice versa, skip the oat bran if you don't know where to find it, etc. We cut back on the sugar in the original recipe because it was just a little much, and as I keep cooking more and more low- and no-sugar recipes in this house, perhaps my family will eventually accept an alternative sweetener, or even none. You can use any kind of chopped nuts or fruit. (My dad really liked the time I made my smaller batch with Brazil nuts, though that always tasted a little strange to me.) The original recipe called for two cups of Grape Nuts, and no pumpkin seeds or oat bran. There are also lots of other granola recipes--I liked a sugar-free peanut butter granola I tried not long ago.
And thus ends today's ruminations. Perhaps I will again talk about fannish things someday. Wait and see. For now, there will probably be more recipes. I love to bake, and it's one of the happiest things in my life right now.