Best Ever Homemade Granola

15Mar08

I have a little confession to make. We’ve all been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, yet I hardly ever eat a proper morning meal. And when I mean hardly, it’s probably once a week!

It’s been drilled in my head for years at university throughout my nutrition classes that it’s crucial as it re-fuels the body after rest and it “switches on” the metabolism to help burn kilojoules, yet I still can’t wake up, sit down and eat something simple as toast or yoghurt everyday. Don’t get me wrong, I do eat “breakfast” occasionally, but it’s usually at 9am and isn’t enough food to sustain me through until lunch. Some days I will eat breakfast, but only when I have had a really really early dinner the previous night and I am totally famished at 6am the next day. I don’t know if it’s the laziness factor or if it’s because my stomach can’t tolerate large amounts of food in the early hours of the morning.

It’s funny, although I studied nutrition, I have no real intentions of following a career as a nutritionist, but if I did, I’d be a huge hypocrite as I cannot even follow my own dietary advice! So, as of yesterday, I have decided to change my ways and force myself to eat a healthy breakfast every morning. I’ll start small and build my way up. I had two crumpets, a banana and a glass of orange juice yesterday at 6.30am and I know it doesn’t sound like much, but for my little morning stomach, it was a feast!

Today’s breakfast was a tub of mango yoghurt and a small bowl of granola with soy milk. It was wonderfully nutty with a mixture of raw nuts and seeds, with a subtle sweet hit from a sticky blend of brown sugar, pureed apples and liquid sweeteners . A few teaspoons of cinnamon and ginger provided a hint of spice and the texture of the raisins juxtaposed well with the crunchiness of everything else. In summary, it was awesome!!

A small bowl of this granola a few times a week in the morning will definitely help me adapt to eating breakfast everyday!

Best Ever Homemade Granola

Adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson in ‘Feast’.

I couldn’t find a small jar of applesauce in my local supermarket, so I substituted it with pureed apples found in the baby food aisle. Also, Nigella’s original recipe uses brown rice syrup, but I used maple syrup instead.

I like mine with soy milk instead of cow’s milk. The nuttiness in the soy complements the granola well.

Dry

5 cups rolled oats

2 cups raw almonds

1 cup raw sunflower seeds

¾ cup sesame seeds

¾ cup light brown sugar

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 cup raisins

Wet

¾ cup pureed apples

¼ cup maple syrup

¼ cup golden syrup

¼ cup honey

1. Preheat oven to 140°C.
2. In a large bowl, combine all of dry ingredients except the raisins. In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix well.
3. Spread the mixture over two baking trays and bake for 45 minutes until golden brown. During baking time, stir the granola every 10 or 15 minutes and rotate the pans.
4. Once ready, remove from the oven and continue to stir well. If you don’t, it will set into a huge slab!
5. Add the raisins and stir well.

Makes 10 cups. Store the granola in an airtight container. Pop it in the fridge as the nuts can go rancid quickly.

Filed under: breakfast, nuts, recipes   |  14 Comments
Tags: baking, breakfast, cereal, granola, nuts, oats, recipe