Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Day #18: Granola!

Yesterday on FB I posted my enthusiasm about making granola for the first time. Today it is done and here's the story:

I like granola and have bought a lot of different kinds of granola from a lot of different places. I've never finished a store bought bag of granola (really, you'd think I would stop buying granola). There's always some problem: too sweet, carob instead of chocolate, pepitas, unsalted cashews, too much of one thing, not enough of another. I figured it was about time to try my hand at making my own.

I used this recipe : I've seen lots of granola recipes, but this one appealed to me because it was simple and basic and seemed like a good choice for a first try.


Here we are after mixing all the ingredients (excuse my crappy pictures).  I cut the recipe in half and still wound up with tons of granola.  The recipe instructed me to bake in the oven at 250 for 2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes. I followed instructions carefully and was quite skeptical when it was time to take it out. It turned a nice golden brown, but it was still moist. I had serious doubts about whether or not this giant mess of oats and wheat germ could actually turn into yummy, crunchy granola goodness.


Guess what!?!? It totally turned into crunchy, yummy granola goodness.

The verdict: this is a great basic granola. It's sweet, but not too sweet (Frances thinks it needs more sugar, but she's 13 and is fueled primarily by gummy worms). The pecans and coconut provide a great crunch. And, I think, it will pair nicely with a wide variety of dried fruit. I went in search of dried apples (can you dry fruit in your own kitchen? do you need a special device? i should google that), but didn't find any. I opted for dried cherries instead and it was perfect.



A job well done, if I do say so myself.

2 comments:

Jill said...

But how will it pair with a white wine?

Conseula said...

Excellent question--I'm inclined to think most things pair nicely with white wine ;)