Sunday, September 5, 2010

Real Granola

During the late 1960s and early 1970s I made my own granola. It was the hippy influence. I never was a hippy but appreciated what some of them were trying to do - get real. Members of society at that time were getting enamoured with food packaging, canned soups and frozen TV dinners. The back-to-the-landers hippies were reacting to many things and food preparation and storage was one of their platforms. When I was growing up in Rosthern, Saskatchewan in the 1950s, I would never have guessed that the dismal small freezer in the Friesen and Company grocery section containing freezer burned unrecognizable food stuff would be replaced by rows and rows of up right freezers in mega grocery stories.

This summer, I got the urge to make granola again because I was cleaning my baking cupboard and found a bag of coconut that was begging for a reinvention. Essentially you have to mix dry to wet products in the right ratio, determine how sweet you like it, bake the mixture until it is crunchy and add the snipped dry fruit after you bake it. I have tried the following recipe with olive oil and then canola oil, added more and less cinnamon - it all works. So make it with what you have in your cupboards and enjoy real flavour.

Recipe Dried part
2 and 1/2 cups of lonely coconut shreds
4 cups of large oatmeal flakes
1 cup of flaked almonds (if you like other nuts better use them)
1/2 cup sesame seed
1/2 cup flax seed

Mix together in a large bowl.

Note in this recipe the ratio is 8 and 1/2 cups of dried seeds, grains and nuts to 1 cup of liquid. You could increase it to 10 to 1 but do not go any higher with the dried food. You will lose the clumping and moisture.

Wet part
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp cinnamon

Heat liquids till warm. Pour over the dry ingredients. Mix well. Scatter on to 3 greased cookie sheets. Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Toss. Bake another 10 minutes. Do not overbake because it will burn. Remove. Cool.

Dried Fruit

Add 1 cup of dried cranberries and 1 cup of snipped dried apricots. Of course you can add as much or little dried fruit as you want and what ever else you want to use up. What you toss in will not affect the ratio.

Place in a clear glass jar so you can admire the colours of the granola. Do not expect the jar to remain full. The granola is perfect as it, sprinkled on yogurt, ice cream, stewed apples or served with warm milk. Those hippies got this one right.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Baked Ratatouille

My friend of 36 years is an amazing cook. She was the one who taught me to have a printed timing schedule in the kitchen when you entertain. To have perfection when when you are hosting, cooking and serving you need to know to the minute cooking and serving times. I also watched her flip a freshly baked chapiti into the garbage because it did not meet her standards. Only my well developed social graces - an estrogen laden frontal lobe - kept me from diving after it. I did shed a tear; bread in any form does that to me.

When she invited me for lunch, she said she felt like ratatouille. She was experiencing vegetable< hunger. It was September and there were all those fresh vegetables to be used and of course savoured. However, she confessed that the recipe called for one can of plum tomatoes and it was better to use the canned tomatoes than the fresh ones.v
If you are the kind of person to change recipes like I am or if you only work with what is in your pantry, do not omit the olives because they add a great deal of flavour.

The original recipe was published by Carroll Allen in Recipes Only Cookbook (1989). The recipe below has less salt and oil than the original one. Many cook books have recipes for ratatouille because it is a common vegetable stew created originally in the south of France.

Ingredients

1 egg plant
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves of chopped garlic
2 diced large onions
2 sliced zucchinis
2 sliced sweet red peppers
1 28 oz can of plum tomatoes
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup kalamata olives


For the topping
1 cup grated swiss cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

For the Bottom
3 tbsp dry bread crumbs

Trim the egg plant, cut into slices, sprinkle with salt and place in a colander. Drain after 15 minutes. Brush with oil and broil each side for 5 minutes. When cool, slice into strips.

Add oil to pan, fry garlic and onions till soft. Add zucchinis and red peppers. Cook till soft. Add tomatoes, thyme, bay leaf, egg plant and cook 15 minutes on medium heat. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Stir in parsley and olives.

Sprinkle the bread crumbs on the bottom of a greased 12 by 18 inch casserole. Gently pour in the vegetables. Top with the two cheeses. Bake 30 to 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve with rice and a crusty brown bread.

I asked for seconds because it tasted like the beginning of autumn but it was the colours on my plate that were irresistible - all the reds with the slash of purple eggplant, beige spots of cheese and a hint of green. It is a food palette.