Off-Campus Kitchen: Granola
To continue the trend of staple foods that are much better homemade than store-bought, this week I again turned to my mother’s store of kitchen secrets. Granola is one of those foods that can be made at home very simply and customized to your personal tastes, but is often sold artisanally — for $12 a pound — instead. Once you know how to make it yourself, I hope you’ll find it difficult to go back to the expensive and often boring store-bought variety. I love eating this granola over yogurt every morning, and it’s a familiar ritual for my mom to make a fresh batch each week.
Although this is my family's particular recipe, customize it however you like — switch up which dried fruits and nuts you include, or try sweetening the mix with agave instead of honey. As is my motto for most of the recipes in this column, work with the ingredients you’ve got on hand. If I had my druthers, this is something you’ll prepare often, so it’s better to be flexible and innovative rather than nitpicky about specific quantities. Modification — even by accident — can yield delicious discoveries that you’ll pass down in your own unique version of the recipe. What follows is a basic theme with the capacity for endless variation.
You will need:
4 cups oats
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1 cup almonds (feel free to substitute — pecans or walnuts are also excellent choices and hazelnuts make an interesting change!)
¼ cup sesame seeds
½ cup safflower oil
½ cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup currants (or other dried fruit, like cranberries or raisins)
Directions:
1. Toast the oats on a baking sheet in an oven at 300 degrees for 15 minutes. While oats are toasting, combine sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, coconut flakes and nuts in a bowl.
2. In a glass measuring cup (or other microwave-safe vessel), heat safflower oil and honey for 1 minute on high in the microwave. You can also heat the oil and honey slowly in a saucepan on the stove. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla to the honey-oil mixture, and stir in.
3. Remove oats from the oven. Add the seeds, coconut flakes and nuts to the oats on the baking sheet. Pour the warm honey mixture over the oat mixture on the baking sheet, and stir well to coat.
4. Return the baking sheet to the oven, still at 300 degrees, and bake for about 45 minutes, or until granola looks toasty brown. Check and stir the granola every 15 minutes as it bakes.
5. Remove toasted granola from the oven and let cool before mixing in the dried fruits of your choice. Store in an airtight container.