The Beginning Of All Good Things

Hi everyone,

       I recently posted about muffins and cookies -great snack foods and if they're healthy, well that's even better! I had a request for sugar free snacks, and I do have a few of those up my sleeve but I thought I'd start with the base for some of those delicious snacks. Granola.
       There's so many granolas out there that I could live to be 1000 and probably wouldn't be able to try them all. So what makes this granola different?
Well, for starters -it's homemade. You know exactly what is in it; gluten free, peanut butter free, egg free, no hidden calories, fats or oils, only what you put in. Secondly, it makes a lot of granola and you can store it in the freeze both prior to cooking it and after you cook it. Finally, it tastes delicious.
       Why tell you this? It's great as a cereal or muesli in the morning, as a lunch-time snack with fruit or as a I'm-craving-need-munchies-NOW food and it makes great snacks when combined with other food stuffs (more on this in a later post).

Granola

So here's my recipe for granola:  

Ingredients

5 cups rolled oats (GF)

1 cup oat bran

1 cup Quinoa Flakes

1 cup raw sunflower seeds, hulled

1 cup unsweetened coconut

½ cup raw sesame seeds

¾ cup honey or maple syrup

¾ cup oil

Method

Mix all ingredients except honey and oil together*. Add honey/maple syrup to mixture and stir thoroughly. Spread across a large baking sheet. Bake at 325F for 10 minutes, remove from oven and stir. Return to oven for another 10 minutes. Repeat process about 4 times (about 40 minutes) or until granola is a light golden brown colour. Feel free to add nuts, dried fruit or anything else you love in granola!

*If waiting to cook: freeze all these ingredients in a container for later use.

Note: maple syrup seems to make the granola slightly less clumpy than the honey.