It's time for another in my IRNTMSTINECFTITMATIGTBLOTIWWAGSLTTTAGTDSOR series (I can't tell you how long that actually took to type out).
In other words, it's breakfast time!
I don't remember breakfasts ever being a communal affair in my family. There must have been a time when an adult was in charge of making and supervising my breakfast but I don't really remember it. Once I started making my own way to school in the mornings, it would be my responsibility to make two cups of tea and a slice of toast for my mother and to take it up to her in bed just before I left. My own breakfast would generally consist of a muffin or whatever I could grab to eat in front of the early morning news.
I really have no idea how people find the time to sit down and have a proper breakfast in the morning. Even at the weekends when I generally have more time, breakfast is normally gobbled down while sitting cross legged on the bed and checking twitter. At least if my breakfast consists of some plain yoghurt and a handful of oats and seeds, I feel at least a little bit healthy.
I always thought that 'when I was a grown up', I'd somehow magically become the type of person that sat down for breakfast every morning (I also thought that 'when I was a grown up', I would have learnt to keep my bedroom tidy but that's a whole other story). It's not happened yet though and I am pretty sure that it's not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
I made this granola from what I found hanging around in my cupboards. Some people don't like chocolate in the morning. I don't understand those people. I normally use some sort of fruit juice to make up the wet ingredients but realised I didn't have any (this really is the story of my life at the moment) but luckily Nigella had a recipe using apple sauce, a technique I decided to adopt here. So long as you keep the ratios pretty much the same, you can use whatever you have on hand. If it seems a bit dry, add a bit more liquid and vice versa. It's pretty difficult to get it wrong.
~Cranberry and chocolate granola
Yield: Makes enough for a 1.8l container
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 125g apple sauce
- 100ml light agave nectar
- 1 tablespoon light brown sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 250g rolled oats
- 100g sunflower seeds
- 100g flaked almonds
- 100g dried cranberries (those sweetened with fruit juice are better, in my opinon, than the really sugary ones)
- 100g dark chocolate chips
Cooking Directions
- Preheat the oven to 150C/300F and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
- In a small pan, heat the oil, apple sauce agave nectar, sugar and salt and stir to combine.
- Put the oats, almonds and seeds in a large bowl, add the liquid and mix until all your dry ingredients are coated.
- Spread out over your baking tray and bake for 40-50 minutes until golden brown, stirring every 15 minutes or so. I like to add the cranberries and about 1/4 of the chocolate chips 5 minutes before the end so that some of the chocolate melts and helps to bind everything together.
- Remove from the oven and cool before stirring in the remaining chocolate chips.
- Store in an airtight container for a couple of weeks.