I got a wicked urge to make granola today. I knew it would be hot outside today, so turning on the oven was like a deathwish. Fuck it, I thought. I want some damn granola. The ingredients have been sitting in my pantry for weeks. It's now or never.
So I looked up the recipe I used from Cat Can Cook back in March and started over. Except this time I was confused about where to put the brown sugar. The instructions say "put all liquid ingredients into a saucepan." From my own knowledge of baking, brown sugar is usually included in "wet" ingredients in a recipe, along with eggs and oil and what-have-you. So in this case, I thought, I should probably put it in the pot with the oil and the honey so it all warms nicely together.
I was wrong. This was a bad idea. When I poured this liquid honey-sugar mixture over my rolled oats and raisins, what I got was not enough liquid to go around. The sugar just clumped up and the honey seemingly disappeared. My granola was almost completely dry, and no amount of forceful mixing would fix it.
So I had to devise a plan. This plan involved sprinkling some extra brown sugar over the granola once it was in the pan, and then drizzling some extra honey all over it. It seems to be working, since I can't smell anything burning and I don't see any flames shooting out of the oven when I open it.
Here's my modified version of this recipe.
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup brown sugar (add to dry ingredients, like you're supposed to)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (I didn't have any so I left it out)
1 cup to 1-1/2 cups of various nuts of your choosing (I picked peanuts this time)
1 cup raisins or other various dried fruits of your choosing (I did 1/2 cup of raisins and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, just to be WILD)
1/4 cup oil (I just used regular vegetable oil)
1/4 cup liquid honey
1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract
Put all your liquids into a small pot and heat over medium-low, stirring occasionally until combined.
Meanwhile, mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
(This was a lot more difficult than it should have been for me, seeing as I have no large bowls. The closest thing I have to a large bowl is a medium-sized pot, so I divided the dry ingredients into two separate different-sized bowls and a pot. Clever, right? Not really. It was hard to know how much liquid to use for each one. I eyeballed it and then ended up mixing together the contents of the two bowls in an attempt to get the consistency right.)
Cover two baking sheets with wax paper. Bake in a 325F oven for 30-40 minutes until golden brown. Stir the mixture every 10-15 minutes. The mixture will get crispy as it cools. Keep in an airtight container to seal in the goodness.
Note: if you're using chocolate chips in your granola, you will probably want to add them to the mix after it has cooled. Mine have pretty much disappeared while in the oven. Guess I'll just have to add more later.
Note 2: I devised a brilliant plan to make this last longer: mix it with Cheerios, or some other generic cereal of your choice. Someone donated two big bags of Cheerios to our pantry a while back and nobody's touched it. So into the mix it goes.
So there it is, a cheap and easy way to make an awesome and relatively healthy snack at home. Store-bought granola can be pretty pricey and not the best for you, so try making it yourself! All these ingredients cost me about $20, but most of the main ingredients (rolled oats, raisins, nuts) come in huge bulk-sized bags, so they will definitely allow you to make this recipe a few times.
And to anyone who says baking is difficult, or they "just can't do it": look how much I messed up in the kitchen today. Even if you can (or can't) follow basic instructions, something like this will probably come out juuuust fine.
So I looked up the recipe I used from Cat Can Cook back in March and started over. Except this time I was confused about where to put the brown sugar. The instructions say "put all liquid ingredients into a saucepan." From my own knowledge of baking, brown sugar is usually included in "wet" ingredients in a recipe, along with eggs and oil and what-have-you. So in this case, I thought, I should probably put it in the pot with the oil and the honey so it all warms nicely together.
I was wrong. This was a bad idea. When I poured this liquid honey-sugar mixture over my rolled oats and raisins, what I got was not enough liquid to go around. The sugar just clumped up and the honey seemingly disappeared. My granola was almost completely dry, and no amount of forceful mixing would fix it.
So I had to devise a plan. This plan involved sprinkling some extra brown sugar over the granola once it was in the pan, and then drizzling some extra honey all over it. It seems to be working, since I can't smell anything burning and I don't see any flames shooting out of the oven when I open it.
Here's my modified version of this recipe.
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup brown sugar (add to dry ingredients, like you're supposed to)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (I didn't have any so I left it out)
1 cup to 1-1/2 cups of various nuts of your choosing (I picked peanuts this time)
1 cup raisins or other various dried fruits of your choosing (I did 1/2 cup of raisins and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, just to be WILD)
1/4 cup oil (I just used regular vegetable oil)
1/4 cup liquid honey
1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract
Put all your liquids into a small pot and heat over medium-low, stirring occasionally until combined.
Meanwhile, mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
(This was a lot more difficult than it should have been for me, seeing as I have no large bowls. The closest thing I have to a large bowl is a medium-sized pot, so I divided the dry ingredients into two separate different-sized bowls and a pot. Clever, right? Not really. It was hard to know how much liquid to use for each one. I eyeballed it and then ended up mixing together the contents of the two bowls in an attempt to get the consistency right.)
Cover two baking sheets with wax paper. Bake in a 325F oven for 30-40 minutes until golden brown. Stir the mixture every 10-15 minutes. The mixture will get crispy as it cools. Keep in an airtight container to seal in the goodness.
Note: if you're using chocolate chips in your granola, you will probably want to add them to the mix after it has cooled. Mine have pretty much disappeared while in the oven. Guess I'll just have to add more later.
Note 2: I devised a brilliant plan to make this last longer: mix it with Cheerios, or some other generic cereal of your choice. Someone donated two big bags of Cheerios to our pantry a while back and nobody's touched it. So into the mix it goes.
So there it is, a cheap and easy way to make an awesome and relatively healthy snack at home. Store-bought granola can be pretty pricey and not the best for you, so try making it yourself! All these ingredients cost me about $20, but most of the main ingredients (rolled oats, raisins, nuts) come in huge bulk-sized bags, so they will definitely allow you to make this recipe a few times.
And to anyone who says baking is difficult, or they "just can't do it": look how much I messed up in the kitchen today. Even if you can (or can't) follow basic instructions, something like this will probably come out juuuust fine.
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