Your Own Granola

Lindy loves a good bowl of Cheerios for breakfast. He also likes granola, but while our oven was broken, he had what I could find of organic whole-grain "cheerios" ... which sufficed but wasn't thrilling. Also it was just carbs for breakfast, spiking his insulin, when I'm struggling to bring more fruit and veg into his day. Granola, with dried apricots, raisins and dates, was a part-solution, but I wasn't able to make it for several weeks.

New stove! (I'll stop cheering about that very soon.) Today was the day! I'm going to give you the recipe that I used today, but that's just a guideline; it's what we enjoy, what Lindy needs, combined with what I happen to have on hand. If you always start with 4 cups of rolled oats, just add stuff you like, mix it up until it seems enough to you!

My Granola

4 cups rolled oats
handful each hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, chopped together
Big handful raisins
5 or so dried organic Turkish apricots, chopped
4 Medjool dates, pitted and chopped. (these are very gooey. You can separate the pieces as you mix with the oatmeal.)
3/4 cup or so unsweetened flaked coconut
about 2 tablepoons ground flaxseeds (I buy the seeds and grind in my coffee grinder)
A few good shakes of cinnamon
A scant 1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground nutmeg (which is really strong, so go easy)
About 1/2 cup coconut oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Combine all the dry ingredients. Melt the coconut and pour into a measuring cup. Add the other liquid ingredients. It should add up to a little over 1/2 cup. Make a well in the center of the oatmeal mix, and pour in the liquid. Combine by drawing the outside mix into the center and rotating the bowl.

Spread a layer evenly on a baking sheet. I use a pizza pan. Don't pile too much. Use a rolling pin to flatten the mix. This makes it come out clumpy. I hesitate to tell you how long to cook it because if you set the timer and don't check it you might end up with burnt granola which I have had more times than I care to reveal. It takes about 10 minutes at 350F to cook until almost done, then keep an eagle eye on it until it's only very slightly brown.

If you want it to be good and clumpy, wait until the pan cools before sliding a spatula under the mix and lifting up.

Then transfer to a vessel for storage.

Change My Granola to your granola! You can use any nuts, you can use any flavoring like almond extract or lemon extract. You can use any dried fruits like craisins or dried cherries. You can sweeten as much or as little as you want. I was generous with the sweetener in this batch and one good thing about writing it down is if it's too sweet I can pull back next time.

Anti-cancer ingredients: Walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts have all been mentioned as serving some anti-cancer purpose. Flaxseeds add omega-3s. Apricots have carotenoids.  And all the dried fruit together adds to the day's consumption of fruit.

Verdict: Today's granola is really good! I think some of the nice flavor is due to the fresh ground nutmeg.