Your Own Granola

When I decide to make granola, my second question is: What do I feel like eating for a month or so? (The first question is: Do I have enough oats?)

Over the decades, I’ve used a number of grains, always in combination with regular rolled oats – never quick oats because I don’t like their faintly bitter flavor – and now simply use gluten-free organic oats.

The composition is never the same twice. You’ll surely want to adjust to your preferences.

Caution: This is a hearty mixture. I take it backpacking.

Fruit and Nut Granola

2 – 3 quarts, depending upon the volume of fruit and nuts you add

Ingredients

1 cup honey
1 cup oil
1 TBSP salt
1 TBSP vanilla
6 cups oats *
About 1½ cups dried fruits (in bite-sized pieces)
About 1½ cups nuts (chopped to bite sizes or left whole)

Melt together oil, honey, and salt in a stovetop pan. Add vanilla. I use coconut oil and honey, but see what you think of other oils and sweeteners.

Chop as you wish, then mix together fruits, nuts, and extras. I prepare a fruit-and-nut mixture once by adding roughly ½ cup of each item on hand. This makes way more than a single batch’s worth, so I freeze the remainder and use it for several batches.

Toss together the grain(s) and raw seeds. Pour the liquid mixture over and mix.

Spread in a shallow-walled baking dish.

Bake 20-25 minutes at 350°F, stirring once in awhile to distribute the better-cooked sections. It’s done when the oats have turned golden and a stolen taste is just right.

Stir in the fruits and other nuts, let cool, and store at room temperature in a tightly-capped jar.

The last of this batch of granola and its coordinated raw oats mixture.

Some nuts and seeds:

chia seeds
flax seeds
pumpkin seeds (if raw, add to oats before baking)
sesame seeds (add to oats before baking)
sunflower seeds (add raw sunflower seeds to oats before baking to develop a delicious toasted flavor)
coconut flakes (unsugared)
almonds
cashews
filberts
mixed nuts
peanuts
pecans
walnuts
nut butter (melt with the liquids)

Some fruits:

dried apricots
dried cranberries
dates
dried figs
home-dried fruit of all varieties, chopped to chew
raisins, especially bulk mixed-color raisins

Extras:

cinnamon
cloves
ginger
nutmeg
Hot pepper flakes

* or use a mixture of oats, rolled wheat, rolled barley, cornmeal (but this doesn’t have as nice a mouth feel if you eat granola dry), quinoa, or any other grain you love.

Notes

Use as little as half the liquid if you prefer a crisper and less sweet cereal. Change the proportions of oil to sweetener until you’ve found your sweet spot.

For larger chunks, use more liquid and make clumps with your fingers as soon as the oats come out of the oven and you’ve added uncooked ingredients.

Finally, as I prepare the granola ingredients, I add some of the fruits and nuts, and a little salt, to my morning oatmeal jar. Start the day with fancy oatmeal that needs no sweetening!