Today is gorgeous! I'm sitting outside watching my chickens eat as much green grass as they can handle. They are so happy to be out of the chicken yard and in the garden. It's a great time of year to let them into the garden. They'll eat up all the grubs and larva that will grow into bigger pests later.
Okay, so homemade granola. One, it's easy. Two, it's delicious. Three, it's healthy (mostly).
This recipe is easily adapted for any amount you want to make. The amounts I have below are based off of the amount of ingredients that will fit on one of my baking sheets. If you want to make more or less, just eyeball the amounts that look good to you as you add them to the pan. Also, all of my measurements that are in ounces are just approximations from the bag size. I can get about 3 batches out of one 12 ounce bag of chocolate chips, so I use about 4 ounces.
Preheat your oven to 350.
Pour 2 cups of steel cut oats out onto your baking sheet, and give it a shake to spread them evenly around the pan.
Next, add a cup of nuts. I used raw peanuts because they were on sale. Also, I love peanuts. I frequently use raw almonds in this recipe, and you can use whatever nut you want.
And if you want to add some seeds you can do that now as well. I added 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds I needed to use up.
This goes into the oven for 20 minutes, taking time to pull it out and stir it half way through. The oats around the edge of the pan will get too dark if you don't stir, so use a rubber spatula to pull the oats from the outside to the inside and give it another shake to even everything back out.
After 20 minutes I add my fruit. You can use any dried fruit you like. In this batch I used 3.5 ounces of dried coconut...
...and 1 cup of raisins.
Put the granola back into the oven for 5 to 8 minutes. If you are using coconut, keep a close eye on it. Lightly browned, toasted coconut is delicious, but it goes from brown to black very quickly.
Lastly, after you pull the pan out of the oven, add about 4 ounces of chocolate chips. Sprinkle them all over the granola. The heat from the granola will melt them as you mix. I use my rubber spatula to press the granola into the chocolate so that everything gets an even coat.
Before you scoop the granola off the pan, it needs to cool so that the chocolate can harden. I usually just leave mine out on the counter for a few hours, but you can put it in the fridge.
Once everything has cooled, you can scoop your granola into an airtight container for storage. Use your hands to break up any chunks that look too big for a spoon.
This granola, in a cereal bowl, with some whole milk is one of my favorite snacks. We would eat it for breakfast every day before we had chickens. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Oh this looks dangerous! I love how Albus looks quite judgmental, like he probably has a better way of doing it if he just had opposable thumbs. :)
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