My perfect breakfast is granola with plain yogurt and fresh fruit. Growing up with nut allergies, there was never a granola that was safe for me to eat, so I learned to make it myself. My standard recipe for a long time was 1 part honey, 1 part oil, 8 parts granola. I'd bake it in the oven and then stir in toppings. It takes about forty minutes and it's oily and heavy.
A few months ago while leafing through my hand-me-down Enchanted Broccoli Forest cook book, by Mollie Katzen (she wrote the quintessential Mousewood Cookbook), I found a recipe for dry roasted granola, and it has stolen my heart. It's genius, it's quick and practically fat free! Her recipe includes nuts, brown sugar, wheat germ, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut, brown sugar and salt. Of course the beauty of granola is you can add anything you like.
I started with 1 cup of rolled oats (the slow cooking kind) in a frying pan over medium heat and stirred it constantly until the oats started to visibly toast. You'll smell it happening, it's amazing! My stove has a mind of it's own, and goes from high heat to low heat unannounced, so I had to watch carefully. I then added 1/3 cup sunflower seeds and stirred some more. Next, I threw in 1/3 cup wheat germ and 1/3 cup shredded coconut. After about two minutes I sprinkled in 1/4 cup maple sugar (brown tastes great too) and a generous pinch of salt. This is when the magic happens. The heat of the pan melts the sugar and leaves a crunchy coating on the granola. At this point you can add any dried fruit, I add a handful of raisins.
And that's it! Perfect breakfast in about 15 minutes. I ate mine hot (I couldn't wait) over plain Liberte yogurt and topped with Ontario peaches and wild blueberries. I'm thinking life doesn't get much better than this...and that's a nice thought to start your day!
Cheers! (with spoons of course)
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