While I’ve heard the “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” adage, it’s never been my favorite, unless it’s served a few hours after I wake up. Mornings aren’t my bag, and finding food for myself first thing is always a struggle.
Trying to be healthy, I’ve spent the last few months developing the habit of eating probiotic yogurt every morning. Since I don’t usually like plain yogurt, I also ended up eating more granola.
I love many of the granolas available in bulk at the Mountain People’s Co-op, but I ended up eating so much of it, this habit seemed uneconomic, especially with my family consuming it as a snack, too.
With the pandemic hitting, I also didn’t want to hog resources shared by our community — and buying enough granola to keep me in breakfast for a few weeks at a time seemed like more than my fair share.
So I bought acceptable amounts of granola ingredients and tried my hand at making my own. I’d attempted it in the past, but never created a yummy product.
The basic principal of making granola is to mix your chosen ingredients (nuts, seeds, oats) with oil and a sweetener, and roast in the oven until lovely and crisp.
With this latest round of trials, I again made a batch of granola that I didn’t want to eat. I followed recipe directions for the oven temperature and time and ended up with an overdone mix — not burned, but not perfectly golden.
Again trying to be healthy, I was over eager when I added flax seeds, and the whole thing tasted of flax oil; not my favorite flavor in the world. Another mistake I made was adding cranberries into the mix at the beginning of the process — they came out of the oven unpleasantly dry and with a slight burned flavor.
On my next try, I left out the flax altogether and wisely omitted any fruit. In case this was another fail, I made a small batch.
I mixed a couple scoops of rolled oats, a scoop of steel cut oats, a handful of pumpkin seeds, almonds (a mix of whole and sliced) and pecans. I tossed this mix with a few tablespoons of melted coconut oil and a couple spoonfuls of my homemade maple syrup.
Following online directions, I roasted this mix in the oven at around 350 degrees for 10 minutes, then stirred the granola and turned the pan around. The directions said to toast for another 12 minutes, but I opted to start checking after six, and found it was perfectly golden after eight (so a total of 18 minutes).
Once removed from the oven, I let the mix cool completely in the pan for a few hours. Then I snacked on it, munching up most of the nuts before the granola made it near my breakfast yogurt.
Since, I’ve made many successful batches of granola, usually with the same recipe. But the possibilities are practically endless. Adding dried fruit, coconut flakes, chocolate chips, sweetening with honey, mixing in other nuts and seeds in different proportions can yield lots of different flavors.
Once I got the timing and ingredients right, I found that it was much tastier than most cereals I’ve tried, due to freshness. I also enjoy controlling the amount of sugar — many commercial varieties are packed with sweeteners.
Plus, it’s a great way to make a breakfast treat out of ingredients that are convenient to have on hand for other types of recipes.
ALDONA BIRD is a journalist, exploring possibilities of local productivity and sustainable living in Preston County.
