Sunday, May 28, 2006

Honey Granola with Dates, Raisins and Apricots

One of the best parts of making granola is the smell of honey wafting through the house as it dries out in the oven. If there was a honey perfume, I'd finally be on the scent bandwagon.

Until recently, I've always purchased my granola. My brother presented me with a gift of granola before Christmas. This was interesting in itself, as he isn't usually a food gifter himself. But even better, it was delicious. He claimed it was easy and seemed surprised by my surprise. Right he was. It amazes me now that we allow ourselves to pay so much for only OK granola sold by the large companies.

When I was a kid, my mother was occasionally inspired to purchase 'healthy' granola, which was always unfortunate from my perspective. It wasn't very good- it usually lacked fruit and had seeds in it I always tried picking out. This way, you get exactly what you want in your granola.
Picky eaters are probably a large percentage of the DIY foodie population.

This is the granola I'll be eating this week, with plain or vanilla yogourt.

2 C rolled oats
pinch of salt
1 1/2 C almonds, chopped
1/2 C blanched almonds
1/4 C vegetable oil
1/4 C honey
1 C raisins
1/2 C chopped dates
1/2 C chopped apricots

1. Stir the oats, salt and almonds together.
2. Mix the honey and oil together.
3. Mix the honey-oil into the oats and almonds.
4. Spread it on a pachment lined cookie sheet and dry out in a 250F oven, for about 1.5-2 hrs.
5. Mix in the dried fruit. Store in an airtight container.

2 comments:

Shayo said...

Sounds delicious. Maybe I'll make some this weekend, we have a huge canister of oats that I bought when I was on a health kick but could never bring myself to eat because I can't stand the mushy texture of oatmeal. Although, I'll probably omit the dates, raisins and apricots...which leaves me with fruitless granola (blech). Do you have any suggestions for other dried fruit that I could use?

Nerine said...

Cranberries? Dried cherries?
Some people put dried apples in their granola, but I can only get as far as trail mix with dried apples- something about the texture.