Granola

Today, my friends, I am going to rock your world.

At least your granola world, anyway. Maybe it will extend to other spheres of influence in your life; I offer no guarantees one way or the other. A good granola certainly has the potential to touch your very soul though, so don’t be surprised.

 

This is one of those things that we make so frequently in my house that I prep several batches before I make them. (You may recall I’m big on organization.) So in a big plastic container, I start with 2 cups of flat-sliced almonds, then add 1 cup of dry-roasted, unsalted cashews.

 

The final dry ingredient is 1 cup of dried, shredded coconut. Wet coconut will make your granola soggy, which is bad. Plus, it’s full of nasty preservatives, which is even worse. I use Bob’s Red Mill shredded coconut, but the truth is I should probably start looking into buying it in 5-pound bags instead.

 

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’… Oh, look! It’s a different day now, and I’m ready to actually make my granola. In a large pan, spoon out 3 Tablespoons of coconut oil. If you’ve never worked with coconut oil before, it’s pretty awesome stuff. Aside from being packed with antioxidants, it contains lauric acid, which is a potent anti-infective. You can literally eat it by the spoonful, if you are so inclined.

But the really fun thing is that coconut oil has a freezing/melting point of exactly 76 degrees Fahrenheit. At 77 degrees, it is a liquid like any other oil. At 75 degrees, it is a solid like butter. You can use this to your advantage depending on whether you want to work with a liquid or a solid, or you can just set the jar on the counter and use it as a makeshift thermostat.

 

Now we add 1/4 cup of honey to the pan…

 

…then we dump in the dry ingredients, conveniently portioned out and ready to go.

 

Add a pinch of salt, then stir everything around over medium heat for a few minutes until the liquid has coated everything and has begun sizzling.

 

Dump it all on a large sheet of parchment paper, and spread it out so it can cool.

 

After it’s cooled off enough to handle, put it all into a large food processor, and pulse it 8 or 9 times until everything is ground up. That’s me pushing the button with my thumb, by the way, not reaching out for the granola like some kind of cryptkeeper.

 

Here is where the use of coconut oil becomes important again. In order to keep your granola crunchy instead of wet, all you have to do is keep it under 76 degrees. Here in Texas, that usually means in the refrigerator, but maybe in other parts of the country you can get away with keeping it on the counter. Maybe hide it behind something else on the counter, though, so you get a chance to eat some before everyone else does.

 

Happy Eating!

 

The GFCF Lady’s Granola

2 cups flat-sliced almonds
1 cup dry-roasted, unsalted cashews
1 cup dried, shredded coconut
pinch of salt
3 TBS coconut oil
1/4 cup honey