Granola the 2nd

Hard not to snack on, but good for husband breakfasts - granola is easy to make and smells as delicious as it tastes. I had a couple over for a dinner last night - i made thai curry with butternut squash, kale, habanero, multiplying onions and cauliflower from the garden (the squash being the odd man not grown by me). Turned out scrumptions - i should have taken a pic of my one head of cauliflower, but i weighed it at least: 11 ounces.

Anyhoo, i gave Mary a taste of the granola I'd made that day and am posting the specific recipe here by request.

• 2 cups rolled oats (organic)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt (fine sea salt- could reduce this if using sea salt, but i kinda like the extra salty kick)
• 3 Tablespoons veg oil - i used 1/2 safflower 1/2 olive
• 1/4 honey or agave nectar or mixture of the two
• 1/4 cup rapadura (brown sugar if you don't have rapadura, but you should get some)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp (a splash) almond extract
• mixed nuts/fruits to taste, this time 'round i used:
• handful walnuts and pecans crumbled
• sprinkling dried wild blueberries
• handful coconut shavings (sweetened as i was a bit short on the honey)
• hemp seeds (could use flax as well)

You could use a lot more nuts/berries. The original recipe calls for 1 1/3 cup nuts and fruit.

Preheat 325. Line a cookie sheet with parchment. Toss oats with cinnamon and salt to mix well. In separate bowl mix oil, honey, sugar, vanilla, almond (the wet stuff) and add the oat mixture to blend well - occasionally squeezing with your hands to mush it together well. Spread this evenly in the cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and flip/ stir and add nuts. Bake 5 minutes, remove and flip/stir, add hemp seeds (flax). Bake another 10 minutes, remove and flip/stir adding fruit and allow to cool. Will be softish when you take it out of the oven, but will crisp up as it cools. Store in a well sealed jar - if doubling recipe store some in fridge or freezer for longer shelf life.

Ta Da. Easy. Don't be limited to the recipe. Add whatever you have around, keeping in mind if it will burn or not. Things like chocolate or burnable seeds should be saved until the last or second to last step. Larger nuts and things can go in sooner.

Mary also inquired about yoghurt making - which i'm excited to say will be happening soon! My mama is shipping me her old yoghurt maker for my birthday (if she remembered to get that in the box) so i'll be yoghurting away with my local raw milk pronto. Can't wait for yoghurt and granola with seasonal fruits!

Delicious Homemade Granola

Who knew making granola was so easy? The benefits of making my own are many:

• I know what's going into my husband's stomach, and it's all good stuff
• It's fresher than you could possibly get in the store
• I can pick and choose each ingredient that goes in
• I can adjust the amounts to make a batch that's just the right size to last the week and fit into the container

lots more. but that's a start. I worked off of a recipe i found online.  I didn't have all the ingredients he used, and would rather use locally sourced or on hand stuff anyway. I also changed the sweeteners around to be more healthy and low glycemic. The process was super simple and i could do several other things while the grains were cooking.
I think next time i'll try this with some mixed rolled grains, not just oatmeal. But this is sure tasty! (I would have put in raisins, but hubby said no thanks)

• 2 cups rolled oats (preferably organic)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt (i used fine sea salt)
• 3 T plus 1 tsp veg. oil (i used safflower this time)
• 1/4 cup honey (i mixed honey and agave nectar - would have used all agave but it's a bit spendy. Be sure and use local honey)
• 1/4 Rapadura
• 1 tsp vanilla (i snuck some almond extract in there also)
• the recipe calls for assorted nuts and fruits, i used what we had: about a cup of chopped walnuts and pecans plus some flax seed and hemp for omegas.

Preheat to 325. Toss the oats, cinnamon and salt together. In another bowl mix the wet stuff.  Add the oats to the gooey stuff and mix with your hands well, squishing into several balls and scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula. Spread oats evenly on a pan lined with parchment.
Bake 10 minutes, remove and flip, add nuts
Bake another 5 minutes, remove and flip, add flax and hemp
Bake 10 minutes,  remove and cool. Add fruit now if you're using any.
Let cool completely and transfer to an air tight container. Try not to eat it all now.

Should keep about one week. As if we can keep our hands off that long! This stuff is so good - great balance of sweet and salty. The recipe called for hazelnuts, which i'd loved to have used if i had any. Someday we plan on raising an orchard with filberts and other nuts that i can't wait to use in recipes like this. We have a pecan at this house, but naughty squirrels ate all the nuts before they even got ripe.

A brekkie of granola may not be as satisfying as porridge, but sometimes you need to give the husband something a little sweet to keep him happy (and to thank him for being such a great guy). Plus the house smelled like oatmeal cookies for hours afterward - you can't beat that!

Do you have a favorite granola recipe?

Rapadura - a Natural Sweetener

Man is it ever gross outside. We may not be getting the "Snowmageddon" down here in Austin, but we're getting plenty of rain. It's stayed in the 30s all day and is just down right nasty out there. The chickens would like to go on strike if they had their way: poor things are positioned right over the back yard roof runoff. Blecht.

Anyhoo- thought i'd curl up with some warm tea and tell you about Rapadura.

I learned of it while reading Nourishing Traditions and planning the Lox recipe. The recipe called for Rapadura, a certain kind of cane sugar. As an fyi: it's no longer called rapadura in the stores, the company (Rapunzel) changed the name to "organic whole cane sugar," in case you're looking for it.
Apparently, folks with low tolerance to sugar, like myself (headaches, highs, lows, depression, tooth ache, you name it) can handle rapadura more easily. It is also made in a more sustainable fashion. See their fancy little illustration:

Jo Whitton over at quirky cooking posted this nice little description recently.  Tastewise, i find it to taste a bit like molasses, but not as potent. Kind of a blend of 'sugar in the raw' and molasses: kind of "brown" tasting, not overly sweet. I mixed it with some regular sugar and cinnamon and it makes a great cinnamon toast blend. It has a very good taste combo with the salmon, i'll be using it in my next grilled salmon marinade with soy sauce and garlic (you'll have to wait for it to stop raining to get me out on the grill, haha). Also nice sprinkled on oatmeal. I don't find it to be quite sweet enough to replace my (very dirty habit/addiction to) sweet-n-low, i'm trying agave nectar for that use. I might grow some stevia plant this year too - dry that and sprinkle into my tea: might work. I don't like the idea of stevia powder as it must be processed an awful lot.

The benefits of rapadura come from the very minimal processing of the sugar cane. Most other sugars are separated - white and molasses, then turned into various things and shoved back together. Rapadura is never separated and thus has greater nutritional value (2% Vitamin C, 11% Iron per teaspoon). I also like that they compost the cane stalks - a nice touch.

It's still sugar. You still shouldn't over do it. But at least it's a 'whole' sugar and not some stripped down white stuff.

What's your favorite sweetener?