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.