My Granola Recipe
4 c. freshly rolled oats (or you could just use pre-rolled)
2 c. combination of water & kombucha, yogurt, kefir, lemon juice, or vinegar (maybe I should be more picky about how much of each, but I'm not... I shoot for at least 2 T. of the souring liquid, but usually more)
1-2 T. of whole wheat flour (I usually don't measure, I just put in a "splash"... aren't I so exacting?!)
Mix these together 12-24 hours before you want to make it. The mixture should be somewhat dry... as in, no additional liquid sitting around at the end of that soak period.
Then, mix together with the above....
1/2 c. molasses
1/2 c. real maple syrup
1/2 c. melted coconut oil
3 scoops of stevia powder (If you don't have this, you could add a smidge more sweetener)
1 t. salt
1 1/2 t. cinnamon (or more if you desire)
2/3 c. ground flax seed (I have started leaving this out... if flax does not give you gastro-intestinal distress, then you could go ahead and add it in.)
Grease two 11x17 pans and pour mixture evenly between two pans. Bake at 350 degrees about 20 minutes or until it looks "set" on top and no longer glossy. At this point, I pull the pans out and break up the mixture into clumps, then return the pans to the oven and continue stirring and un-clumping periodically. To be honest, I have no idea how long I do this for... maybe 30-40 more minutes? I go by intuition and feel. And then I turn off oven and leave the pans in there for several hours or overnight to get hard and crunchy.
When the pans have cooled I put the mixture in a bag and add some raisins... maybe 1-2 cups? Again, I go by feel. ALSO, I add shredded coconut, about 1 c. If coconut isn't your thing, you can leave it out.
And that's how I make granola!
Thanks, Megan. I will tweak this for my needs and supplies.
ReplyDelete1) I use primarily whey for souring. We eat the kefir and yogurt too quickly for there to be much left for anything else.
2) Brown rice flour rather than wheat.}
3) re flax, ... I wonder, perhaps you have an opinion and or knowledge on this, perhaps not. I heard somewhere that flax seed cannot be digested and can cause toxicity. But meal is better. So that's one idea to make it easier on the digestion.
But also, would adding flax meal at the souring stage negatively effect the flax in any way?
I don't know that much about how/why flax works and is difficult, but I think it has some moderately beneficial helpful EFA, and I also know it's added to many GF products because of it's binding qualities. I suppose re the EFA, perhaps it would be better added at the end, after the heating was done?
Hmmm, not that I'm so into all the health things anyway, but I do like to try to figure them out for those moments I do have enough of me left over to "live right."
Tweak away! I do so much tweaking on any given day, that I don't know if I ever fully follow a recipe... hehe... You need to work with what you have.
Delete1) I forgot about whey too... geesh. Of course! I haven't had whey on hand in a while, I usually only have it around when I'm fermenting kraut and pickles in the fall.
2)Yes, you can use an alternate flour... the wheat flour is mainly to help with the break-down of the oats. I read somewhere once about it helping with that....
3) All I know about soaking flax is that it gets very slimy... not sure about the meal though. I have a feeling it would get very thick... hence the binding. I very well could add it in, ground up, when I mix in the raisins and coconut, good thinking!
Megan, do you think you could use sourdough instead of the other cultures? I have a baked oatmeal that I soak in 1/4 c. sourdough and 3 c. water the night before. But I've never applied it to granola, and have wondered how you could soak the oatmeal and still get a dry, crunchy granola. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteJulie, I'm sure you could use sourdough, I had forgotten to add that as a possible souring agent. In fact, I'm sure I've used sourdough before! Thanks for mentioning that!
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