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| Image property of So Good and Tasty. |
What a pleasure to hear from my long-lost friend Annie this morning! I was her peer mentor at a leadership camp a few summers ago, and even though we were only together a few short days, we learned a lot together--about ourselves, about friendship, and about spirituality. Now she's all grown up and married and so full of joy. I explain this to you, because we're continuing our learning journey together today.
We are learning about granola.
Granola is good. Granola is great.
But, like Annie mentioned in her comment, so many recipes out there are more fit for dessert than breakfast.
I've been on a search for a couple years now to find the perfect granola recipe.
Thoughtful friends have sent me their recipes and I've found some great ideas on other food blogs, too.
But I've discovered that I get rather tired of any certain kind of granola when I've eaten it for breakfast every day of the week.
For me, there is no one granola recipe.
I must have options.
Today I bring you the recipe for my latest granola endeavor. I didn't take any pictures of it, because I used it for the photo shoot I was telling you about here (pictures to come soon!). So Jacqui's gorgeous picture will suffice for now.
In this granola, ginger plays beautifully with sweet honey, and almond butter and raw almonds add my favorite nutty flavor. I love the way the granola clumps together in spots. However, the texture is yucky when eaten with milk (at least after being baked); instead, toss it with some yogurt for breakfast or into a baggie for a snack. The original recipe called for pumpkin seeds and dried blueberries, which I left out only because I didn’t have any; they definitely make for a lovely color palette. Because dried blueberries are too sweet for my liking, I think I would like this granola with a more tart kind of dried fruit like cranberries, cherries, or even chopped-up apricots.
Best of all, this granola is flavored with only a bit of honey.
No clumps of brown sugar, no overly sweetened coconut, no Cocoa Krispies.
Just the right touch of sweet, salty, and crunchy.
Ginger-Almond Granola
adjusted from So Good and Tasty
I liked this granola way better in its raw form. If you choose to forego the baking like I did, keep your granola in a big Ziploc in the fridge. It should last a good two weeks stored that way. If you do decide to bake it, just make sure it's in a sealed container; the granola will be fine for two weeks if kept at room temperature.
3 cups rolled oats
2 cups whole raw almonds
1 cup wheat bran
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup honey
3/4 cup natural almond butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup olive oil
3/4 cup dried fruit (optional; see note above)
If you want to bake your granola, preheat the oven to 325* F. Line a large baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine oats, almonds, wheat bran, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. In a small saucepan, warm the honey until very runny. Turn off the heat, and stir in the almond butter and vanilla until smooth.
Pour the honey mixture over the oat mixture. Pour in the oil, and stir it all up so everything is well coated.
If you're keeping your granola (mostly) raw, you can be done here.
Spread the oat mixture evenly on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, stirring twice while baking. Transfer the granola to a large bowl and add the dried fruit, if using. Toss to combine. (Clumps are soft when hot, so you can break them up a little at this point if you want to.)
Store at room temperature tightly covered (or in the fridge if it's not baked).
Serve over yogurt and fruit for breakfast (rhubarb compote adds a nice touch) or by itself for a snack full of protein.
Enjoy!