Choose Your Own Adventure: Granola

If I were ever to write a cookbook, it would be a Choose Your Own Adventure (R). I'd need to work out some copyright nonsense first. Basically, the premise would be that there are a whole bunch of things that you can make that are basically variations on a theme. Bread, granola, mac and cheese, scones...it goes on and on.

So granola. It's really one of the easiest things to make. You need about 6 cups of grain. Usually I like to base it on rolled oats. For the granola I made last weekend, it was just over 5 cups of oats, about 1/2 cup of millet and about 1/3 cup flax. Other good things to add at this point are barley, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, etc. Whatever you find that strikes your fancy in the bulk foods aisle.

No nuts or fruit yet. Those come later.

So I've got my six cups of grain in a big bowl, and the I need some sweet and some fat. The sweet makes it stick together and the fat makes it get all golden and toasty. I use about 1/3 cup of each, but many recipes call for more - if you like big clumps, then more sweet and fat would be in order.

For this particular granola, I used 1/3 cup of canola oil and about a 50-50 ratio of honey and maple syrup.

Other fats that I've successfully used include peanut butter, melted butter, other oils (something with a bit of sesame oil might be really nice. For sweets, brown sugar, orange juice, etc. Careful when you're picking your sweet and fat to balance the liquidity: brown sugar and peanut butter wouldn't be a successful mix (but peanut butter and maple syrup, or brown sugar and canola oil would both work well).

Bust out the food processor, and add any other flavorings you want. For this one, I added vanilla and pink peppercorns. Pulse until it's all emulsified.

Now, take the spatula and start tossing the liquid into the oat mixture. Putting it all in a big ziploc and then shaking might also be successful, but I haven't done it that way. Spread it all out on a jelly roll pan.

Bake at 300 degrees (you've been preheating, right?) for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and stir in nuts (in this case, 1/2 c of chopped blanched almonds). This is also where you would put in coconut. Smooth out and throw back into the oven for another 15 minutes.

Stir in dried fruit (we used sour cherries), and let cool. Store in the fridge. I don't know how long it lasts, ours usually is gone in a week or so.

The great thing about granola is that I never make it the same way twice.

Granolas that have been particularly successful:

orange juice-canola oil-vanilla with coconut and dried pineapple for a tropical surprise.
peanut butter-maple syrup with cashews and craisins

and it's wonderful for pretending it's spring already...