There is nothing new about granola and there must be a million recipes. Hopefully this might encourage you to make your own though. What’s the difference between muesli and granola you ask. Granola is cooked, that’s all, and both have all sorts of things added to create variety in taste and mouth feel. However, my family love this so much that I thought it was worth writing about. It’s full of the goodness of oats and nuts and is enshrouded in coconut to tip it into heavenliness.
Its so easy to buy a box of cereal and we’ve all been brain washed into believing that because it says “whole grain” or whatever on the front that its good for us. Surely its better to know exactly what’s going in your temple? Here its only nuts and 1 grain with a bit of honey and coconut oil. Simple and clean.
Many years ago, my cousin Colleen’s son Christopher said “but look aunty, its brown” meaning……its good for me because it isn’t dyed a shocking colour. I would argue that it is seriously processed if it doesn’t look anything like the way it came out of the ground. So, even the oats in this recipe have had to have been processed in some way to enable us to eat them. All I’m saying is, re-think. Don’t just keep doing it that way because that’s always been the way. Shake it up a bit.
Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F)
Granola Recipe – Serves 4
250g jumbo oats
50g pumpkin seeds
25g sunflower seeds
20g (2 tbsp) sesame seeds
50g grated fresh coconut
50ml (3 tbsp) coconut oil (or extra virgin olive oil)
75g honey
Tip everything into a large bowl and mix and mix until you are sure every last flake of oat has had some blessing with coconut oil and with honey. The nuts will get taken along in this process.
Spread evenly in a roasting tray and toast in the oven for about 20 minutes in total. During this time you will have to turn and re-spread the mix as it tends to get browner about the edges. I look in every 5 minutes or so.
Mark loves this granola and eats it with cold milk and a dollop of home made yogurt on top. True decadence would be to put a layer of stewed figs or prunes in under the yogurt.
I keep this in the fridge in an airtight container in St. Lucia, but happily in the cupboard in the UK. It lasts very well for a week or two, but frankly it gets eaten up before any lack of freshness becomes an issue.
