{"id":1528,"date":"2009-07-19T11:22:37","date_gmt":"2009-07-19T16:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=1528"},"modified":"2020-12-06T22:09:30","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T04:09:30","slug":"granola-better-homemade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/07\/granola-better-homemade\/","title":{"rendered":"Granola, Better Homemade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Using two cookbooks for one oft-used recipe, mainly the penciled notes in each, finally got old. It&#8217;s time to write it out. Is it mine, or theirs (see footnote)? A now-retired newspaper food editor once told me not to worry: &#8220;At conferences, we all agree, if you change more than the amounts of salt and pepper, it&#8217;s then your own recipe.&#8221; It still feels like plagiarizing, though.<\/p>\n<p>This is a no-fat, fairly low-sugar granola. Store-bought granolas, including restaurant granolas, are whole grain, but if you&#8217;re wanting healthy, realize they&#8217;re loaded with oil and sweeteners. Keep a tub of this granola in your fridge, and, at about 1 teaspoon of sugar a serving, granola can be a daily cereal not an occasional &#8220;morning dessert.&#8221; Making it in a large skillet adds to the convenience; takes less than a half-hour. <em>Slightly revised 10 October 2013<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>6 cups rolled grains, mostly or all oats<\/li>\n<li>2 cups raw nuts and seeds, variety, with large ones roughly chopped<\/li>\n<li>1 cup shredded, raw coconut, preferably unsweetened (optional)<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 cup brown sugar, packed OR maple syrup OR honey<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 teaspoon salt<\/li>\n<li>1 teaspoon ground cinnamon<\/li>\n<li>1\/4 teaspoon ground cardamon (optional)<\/li>\n<li>4 Tablespoons carob powder OR cocoa powder (optional)<\/li>\n<li>1 cup dried fruit, if not raisins then chopped to raisin size (optional)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Place heavy, 12-inch frypan on stove on medium heat. After 3-4 minutes to preheat, pour in the grains. Toast for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add nuts and toast for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.<\/p>\n<p>While granola is cooking, in a medium bowl mix brown sugar, salt, spices and optional carob or cocoa, breaking up clumps. If instead using honey or syrup, mix the spices together in a bowl, without adding in the liquid sweetener.<\/p>\n<p>Add coconut to pan, and toast for 2 minutes, stirring more frequently.<\/p>\n<p>Turn off heat and take pan off burner. A.) Pour brown-sugar mixture evenly over surface of granola then mix in, stirring constantly for 2-3 minutes. Or B.) Stir in spice mixture then honey or syrup. The sweetener melds into the other ingredients, but you don&#8217;t want it to stick to the pan and burn, so stir hard.<\/p>\n<p>Place pan on cake rack to cool, about an hour. Mix in dried fruit. Makes 8-10 cups. Store in refrigerator. Makes 16-20 half-cup servings, with milk or yogurt. Or sprinkle over fruit; you know the routine.<\/p>\n<h4>Notes<\/h4>\n<p><em>Granolas are made for variations<\/em>. Virtually any kind of nut or seed is fine. Often, I mix in hulled, raw sunflower seeds with slivered or sliced almonds. Peanuts and sesame seeds might be tasty for you but don&#8217;t work for me in a granola. Chopped dried dates, figs and apricots are wonderful, but raisins are easy to find. Natural food stores with bulk-food aisles are great for granola ingredients.<\/p>\n<p><em>Rolled grains<\/em>. Rolled oats should comprise the majority, but a cup of rolled rye and another of rolled barley add variety in color and taste. I don&#8217;t use rolled wheat because I eat so much wheat elsewhere in the day; a half-cup of wheat bran or wheat germ is nice, though (include in the total 6 cups grain). Don&#8217;t use instant or quick oats etc. because either will turn to powder. No steel-cut or stone-ground, Irish or Scottish, oats. Go for old-fashioned, five-minute oats.<\/p>\n<p><em>Carob powder<\/em>. Carob is no more a chocolate substitute than tofu is a meat replacement. Carob is mellower and muskier than cocoa. Buy in the bulk aisle so you&#8217;re not stuck with a pound of it. The granola will be fine without either.<\/p>\n<p><small>Credit: <em>Still Life with Menu<\/em>, Mollie Katzen, 1988; <em>How to Cook Everything Vegetarian<\/em>, Mark Bittman, 2007.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using two cookbooks for one oft-used recipe, mainly the penciled notes in each, finally got old. It&#8217;s time to write it out. Is it mine, or theirs (see footnote)? A now-retired newspaper food editor once told me not to worry: &#8220;At conferences, we all agree, if you change more than the amounts of salt and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bake"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5039,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2014\/12\/vegan-schnecken\/","url_meta":{"origin":1528,"position":0},"title":"Snack on Vegan Schnecken","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, schnecken can be veganized. I wouldn't be posting, but the sweet rolls were a hit at a party Christmas afternoon. The friends won't know the pastries were animal free until they read this. The earlier recipe, in this Brick \"Savor Schnecken Like a Snail,\" was last updated a year\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bake&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bake","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/kook-cooks\/bake\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Schnecken","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Schnecken.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Schnecken.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Schnecken.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Schnecken.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Schnecken.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Schnecken.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2519,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/12\/savor-schnecken-like-a-snail\/","url_meta":{"origin":1528,"position":1},"title":"Savor Schnecken Like a Snail","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"My Reform Jewish family in Fort Smith, Arkansas, had schnecken for breakfast every Christmas. There was no recipe so every December in adulthood I've tried to recreate the childhood memory, with cookbooks, recollections of family and improvising. That was starting in my 20s. In my 30s, I also began cooking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bake&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bake","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/kook-cooks\/bake\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rosemary and schnecken","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Rosemary-and-schnecken-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7281,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2022\/05\/just-enough-bagels\/","url_meta":{"origin":1528,"position":2},"title":"Just Enough Bagels","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 11, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Sourdough, Whole-Wheat, No-Knead Recipe One goal in my first trip to New York City, organized by My Beloved, this past April, was a breakfast with fresh, real bagels. In Ess-a-Bagel, we believed we had merely picked a well-ranked shop in Yelp walkable from our hotel, but a couple of weeks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bake&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bake","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/kook-cooks\/bake\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Unsold bagels in the trash behind a bagel shop","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Discarded-Bagels-wikimedia-commons.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7890,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2024\/07\/clean-beans\/","url_meta":{"origin":1528,"position":3},"title":"Clean Beans","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The goal for Memorial Day extending to the Fourth of July this year was a recipe for baked beans tasting as I remember Mom opening a can or two and heating them, but also vegan and zero to low oil. The baked beans of yesterday not to mention today had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Holiday Cuisine&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Holiday Cuisine","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/kook-cooks\/holiday-cuisine\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Nearly all the ingredients for Clean Beans in a 2-quart Dutch oven","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baked-Beans-as-remembered-but-cleaner-070724.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baked-Beans-as-remembered-but-cleaner-070724.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baked-Beans-as-remembered-but-cleaner-070724.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baked-Beans-as-remembered-but-cleaner-070724.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baked-Beans-as-remembered-but-cleaner-070724.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Baked-Beans-as-remembered-but-cleaner-070724.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3588,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2012\/03\/the-last-irish-soda-bread-recipe\/","url_meta":{"origin":1528,"position":4},"title":"The Last Irish Soda Bread Recipe","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"March 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In Food Section World, this long-evolved Irish Soda Bread recipe would be published before St. Patrick's Day. But in Brick World, I bake a loaf on St. Paddy's, relying on collected recipes. Brick could schedule the recipe for March 16, 2013, but why wait? Every newspaper every year notes that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bake&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bake","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/kook-cooks\/bake\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Irish Soda Bread","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/IMG_1680.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/IMG_1680.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/IMG_1680.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4652,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/12\/pumpkin-pie-plus\/","url_meta":{"origin":1528,"position":5},"title":"Pumpkin Pie Plus","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This dessert is one of those raw foodie dishes, but the original recipe allowed as how it could be baked. That should comfort one's more conventional dining guests. I've fiddled but only a little with how it's put together. This pie has no gluten and no dairy with low added\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Bake&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Bake","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/kook-cooks\/bake\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1528"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4516,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions\/4516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}