Twinkly’s Glorious Granola
6 C rolled oats (I get them in bulk, filling up my huge, glass pickle-jar with the tare weight deducted)
1/2 C chopped, toasted almonds (I use the sliced-variety from Trader Joe’s, though I hate the wasteful packaging)
1/2 C flaked coconut (not shredded, but use what is most texturally pleasant to you)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 C coconut oil
1/2 C honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, stir together dry ingredients, taking special care to get the very dry cinnamon all over everything else. I also like to crunch up the almonds into smaller bits (it’s a very satisfying sensory experience to do this with bare hands). In a small saucepan, add coconut oil and honey and heat on medium- low until well-blended. Add coconut oil, honey, and vanilla to dry ingredients. Mix until dry ingredients are coated. Grease a 13″x9″ pan with coconut oil. Spread granola evenly in pan. Bake the whole schmear for appx 30 minutes. Midway through baking, stir granola and turn pan for even cooking. Check frequently in the last 15 minutes so granola doesn’t burn.
Remove from oven, cool, and ENJOY! I eat mine with vanilla yogurt every morning for health and happiness.
NOTES:
Granola burns easily. Either check frequently or lower baking temp to 300 or 325 and increase cooking time.
This is a basic and versatile recipe and you can add almost any yummy addition your heart desires, such as 1/2 C sesame seeds, 1/2 C roasted sunflower seeds, 1/2 C dried fruit. The original recipe called for 1/2 C of toasted wheat germ and 1/2 C of wheat bran, but when I experimented with giving up wheat a few years back, I dropped these ingredients and grew to love it even more without them.
This recipe came to me by way of George Hart (I believe it was his mother’s), with a few tweakings by me. I’ve been making this for over 25 years and have never strayed from its path of righteousness. So much better than that over-priced, store-bought crap. Except for a few kinds of locally-made granola I’ve found–Anatola Granola from Hawaii, something from the little grocery in Germany, and a recent discovery down in Southwest F-L-A.
twinklysparkles 
Sounds yummy. I think the only thing I will change when I make it is to use coconut oil instead of canola. Have you ever tried that instead? I bought 6 tubs of oats last week on sale so I was going to be looking for a granola recipe as soon as I found time to make some. So, this is perfect timing for me. Thanks for sharing.
Hey, Connie, I know a woman who makes granola without any oil at all. I suppose I should look up something like that on google. She’s a mom from school and I ate that granola and it was really good. Fewer calories, no muss with the wet ingredients–I think it lacked sweetener, too, or maybe it was just a bit of brown sugar or something.
I do not use coconut oil, though I understand the reasons for doing so and the reasons for not using canola.
It’s funny because I used to use coconut oil for certain massage applications when I did a lot of massage.
Let me know how it turns out! twinkly
sally would approve.
Glad to hear it, pt. Do you remember the whole wheat bread recipe? I used to make that all the time but then I lost the tiny piece of paper it was on. Sheila (from Kent, OH) had it and gave it to me once again. It had been decades since I’d made it and I really failed, baking 3 loaves at once but none of them were particularly yummy. That was summer ’09 and I haven’t tried it again since, I was so shaken by the bad experience. Do you still use that recipe? Do you know of what I speak?
yes, twinkly, i know of what you speaketh. i think i might still have it–i’ll take a look.
i’ve been on a ciabatta kick of late. i know it is not all healthy like wheat bread and all, but it is a real crowd pleaser. you know me, always trying to please the crowd.
(it is a MARTHA recipe–bitch knows her bread)
ptd
pt–you really don’t use capitals, but I see for Martha you made an exception.
I don’t bake and I don’t bake bread, but if this ciabatta recipe you speak of is easy, I might need to start. Who cares about health anyway? I like my bread made from bleached crap. Fuck wheat bread.
well, capitals are just an arbitrary convention of post-enlightenment orthography–for interweb writin’ they’re totally optional as far as i’m concerned. however, one must never invoke MARTHA without the proper awe and respect that caps can provide. plus, she’ll shank ya if you don’t.
anyway, until i find my tasajahara bread book, i can’t track down the wheat bread recipe. the ciabatta is:
4 cups flour
2 cups warm (110) water
1/2 t yeast
1 T salt
mix it up in a bowl. it will be very sticky–not like regular bread. you’re not going to knead it, so it is almost too sticky to handle w/o flour on your hands and maybe some extra flour on the dough’s surface.
after initial mixing, let it rise in the bowl for a couple of hours, then ball it up in the bowl (i use a plastic scraper to move it around in the bowl). add more flour as needed to get it to unstick from the bowl. once it is in a loaf shaped ball, you can let it sit for at least another hour if you want one big loaf, or turn it out on a board and separate it into 2 smaller loaves.
after the 2nd rising, put the loaf (or loaves) onto a sheet pan with parchment paper. the most kneading you should do is just to get it into the loaf shape you want–still should be pretty sticky. let it rest on the sheet pan while you preheat the oven to 450. you can put a pan with water in the oven for some steam.
35-40 minutes for a big loaf
25 or so minutes for two smaller loaves
what is weird about this bread is the small amount of yeast. the longer you let it sit, the better, because with ciabatta you want big air pockets.
i modify this basic recipe for pizza dough and grill bread. best pizza dough ever.
bake a batch for a nice snowy west MA day.
So, I am finally taking the time tonight to make granola. I’ve had the oats for two months already but just never got around to it. I used coconut oil instead of canola as I mentioned I would and fresh coconut just because I had it. I was gifted some homemade organic honey over the holidays so it should be awesome. I also added a bit of flax seed meal just because. Once it’s done baking and cooled off, I’ll add half with dried cranberries and the other half with mini-chocolate chips. This is my first attempt, we’ll see how it goes. Thanks again for posting the recipe Kath.
Oh, and as far as the bread conversation above….do you remember “Ben Bread” from Kent? I will try my hand at wheat bread some day soon. I have the yeast in my frig and all ingredients, just need to find the time. I have been making a great wheat pizza dough lately with fresh toppings and homemade sauce. I don’t think we’ll ever buy pizza again now that I make it from scratch. I must say, it’s been turning out awesome!
Does your coconut oil stay liquid down there? Because up here it’s solid at room temperature, but we’ve got it at about 65 in the day, 58 at night in the house. I imagine it is much warmer there. When I used to use coconut oil for massage, it would start to turn to oil in the summer or with my heat in my tiny office on for a while.
Yum, chocolate chips. I’ve never done that. Maybe it would be too sweet for me. I love sweets and sugar, but not in my granola. It’s already pretty sweet. Maybe dark chocolate. Hmm….
I used to make pizza, but I haven’t in a long time. We each would make our own from my dough and we’d get to do our own toppings. Rises better in the summer, but then it gets too hot in the kitchen baking it. Do you use a pizza tile or pans? I don’t make my own sauce–I actually like it with oil and garlic and herbs and no sauce.
Oh, Connie–I do remember Ben and Ben bread. That was good bread. Sometimes it was a little moist in the middle from still being so hot from baking. Ben Bread. That’s a good one. Remember Peaceable Kingdom bakery?
[…] downed a pint of Starbucks. I finally managed to start a batch of granola at about 10 this evening (https://twinklysparkles.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/twinklys-glorious-granola-2/) and to brew a pot of coffee to be consumed tomorrow […]
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