Greatest Granola with the lot

As the long cold winter finally seems to be leaving us, so does the desire for warm, gooey porridge. In the past, I tried supposedly 'healthy' processed cereals and granolas, but I found that they were either way too sweet or pretty much like eating cardboard. So I decided I would try making it myself.

I found a recipe that sounded quite good, but have since modified and added to it substantially to the point where I think I can call this my own. It is fairly simple, and you can exchange many of the ingredients as you please. It is a very forgiving recipe - you can adjust most things (especially the dry ingredients) to your liking. Lately I have found some' "unstabilised" rolled oats that seem to make it lighter again. Served with plain greek yogurt and maybe a little fresh fruit, even hubby is getting into it.

Ingredients:
3 cups rolled oats
100g (or more) of nuts - I have been using a mixture of almonds and walnuts lately (I really like either slivered or sliced, but any will do. They are easier to eat if broken up a bit)
50g sunflower seeds
50g pepitas
2 tblsp sesame seeds
2 tblsp linseeds
1tblsp chia seeds
3tblsp coconut flakes or shredded
1/2 cup cranberries (if you can find with less sugar, that is great - I have found that Woolworths select have about 1/2 the sugar as Ocean Spray and no other sweeteners)
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp turmeric powder
2 tblsp cold pressed coconut oil, warmed to liquid
125ml maple syrup or rice malt syrup
2 tblsp honey (optional - maybe add a little more of the other instead)
1 tsp vanilla essence or paste

Method:
Turn oven on to 150 deg C and line two baking trays with paper.

Put all the oats, nuts, seeds, cinnamon and turmeric into a large bowl and mix well. Warm the coconut oil to liquid (either a quick zap in the microwave, or sit the bowl in warm water), and add syrup, honey and vanilla and mix well.

Pour liquid into the dry ingredients and mix until it is all coated.
Spread the mixture onto the trays as evenly as possible and pop it into the oven for about 15 mins. After this you can add the coconut (it tends to burn if in for longer), and remix on the tray. You can put the cranberries on at this point also, but they will go quite hard afterwards. Put the trays back in for another 12-15mins (watch it doesn't burn, particularly around the edges). Take out of the oven and place trays on racks to cool, sprinkling evenly with the cranberries. I tend to give it another move around on the tray at this point, otherwise I have found that it has very large chunks which are quite hard to break up when cool.

When it is completely cooled, break it up and put it into an airtight container. Serve with plain yogurt and/or milk, or just eat it as a snack from the container!

Banana, Pear and Raspberry Loaf

There was some fruit that had been sitting on the kitchen bench looking at me for a few days. It had got to the stage where I knew no one would eat it, so it was time for some fruit bread. There was one pear, one largish banana, and then my daughter had come across some raspberries of indeterminate age, in the freezer. Remarkably, I had seen a loaf with this combination in a supermarket catalogue just earlier, so looked for a recipe. 

Unfortunately, none of the recipes really looked like what I wanted, so I amalgamated a couple to make the nice dense, moist sort of fruit loaf I felt like. I pretty much threw the ingredients in, so these amounts are a little rough. Hopefully it works for you!

Ingredients:

1 large overripe banana, mashed

1 very ripe pear, roughly chopped

2 eggs

2 tblsp coconut oil (or olive), in liquid form (very roughly)

2 large tblsp plain Greek yogurt (I used Jalna) (again, very rough)

½ - ¾ cup frozen raspberries

½ cup brown sugar (or less)

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tbs desiccated coconut

½ cup dark chocolate chips

1 ½ cups plain flour

1 ½ tsp baking soda

Method:

Turn oven on to 180°C (350F) and line a loaf pan with baking paper.

Mash banana in a large bowl, add pear, eggs, oil, yogurt and mix well. Try not to mash the pear too much, so there are some chunks left. Add the raspberries, sugar, cinnamon, coconut and choc chips and fold lightly through the liquid mix. Sprinkle the flour and soda on top and then fold lightly until all the flour is wet – don’t overmix (as for muffins).

Put the mix in the loaf pan evenly and pop in the oven for 45-50 mins. My oven tends to run hot, so it might need a little longer. When cooked (when a skewer comes out clean), let it cool a little in the pan, before removing it. Cool a little further (if you can wait) before slicing and eating. Delicious warm (while the choc chips are still gooey) and pretty good cold, too!

Family all thought it was yummy - love to hear your thoughts/experience.