Breakfast is Served.

 


One of my favorite things ever is granola and yogurt. I eat it all the time, as my breakfast. Only occasionally, do I tire of it..and when I do, toast and peanut butter briefly take center stage..

When we were traveling, I had the extreme pleasure of tasting some really great yogurts, especially in Switzerland and in Greece. In Switzerland, they had some very unique flavors, all of which I had to try at least once. One of my favorites was Birchermuesli, yogurt mixed with muesli. So you can imagine, that granola was hard to find here. Instead, I had my Muesli.

In Greece, I needed not to search for granola, because the yogurt was so amazing and thick, that all I needed to complete the meal was some orange marmalade, or a drizzle of thick amber honey. It was heavenly, and I find myself in search always, for that thick, thick ‘may-be-mistaken-for-sourcream’..yogurt. (Trader Joes now carries it!)

We live close to Whole Foods, which is a blessing and a curse all at the same time. I love it, love it, love it….but only until I breeze through the check out line. I am always amazed at how much I spend here, (isnt it dubbed ‘Whole Funds’ or something?) It sometimes makes me a little angry, but as an addict, I keep going back, because it is here that the most beautiful produce lives, it is here that a salt bar exists, and it is here that provides me dinner on most nights from its prepared food section, when I am just not feeling like cooking. I could go on about the Whole Foods experience, because each time I go, the experience lasts at least an hour.

So, I am not surprised in the least to see an amazing aisle of granolas, all handmade and local, of course. Only 10$ for an ounce or something ungodly like that. Funny thing is that I am always tempted by things like this, and usually here, I give in to all these tasty temptations, but not when it comes to something like granola? I mean the packaging is all cute, and the product boosts to be all natural and organic with flax seeds and clusters of goodness and this and that, but then you turn the package around and see just how much fat is added. And, fat tastes good. But, there is usually a lot of it…

So, I got fed up, here in the aisle ‘o’ cereal, and decided to conquer this one myself, damnit!

So I did.

Vanilla, Cranberry and Almond Granola

4 cups old fashioned oats ( I used a rye-barley-oat-wheat hot cereal from Trader Joes and it worked well)
1 c rough chopped almonds
½ c brown sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Toss the above mixture together and set aside..

2 Tablespoons Canola Oil (I cut back on the oil from the original recipe, which said to use 1/3 cup)
1/3 cup honey
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract

Heat the above ingredients and pour over the dry ingredients. Spread in a baking dish..13x9x2 worked well…and bake at 300 for 30 minutes, stirring the mixture every 10 minutes. At 25 minutes, mix in the cranberries…

1 cup dried cranberries

*because of the lower oil content, this recipe doesn't have as many clusters of goodness, but it is still pretty darn good!