breakfast+snacks / recipes / sweet+desserts / glutenfree / vegan / vegano
How to find a way to make cereals with fiber for a kid used to eating boxes of shitty cereals? (I don´t want to waste time talking about something I criticized a long time ago, namely, the shitty cereals that big brands offer to our children: a quick solution full of sugar and all sort of things except fiber).
How to find an alternative with a nice taste so he can eat something nutritionally superior to anything sold in the supermarkets. In fact, I don´t even know the answer to how I found the answer to that, but that particular kid truly loved them. I tried to make something in the simplest possible way, and the sliced coconut of today´s recipe wasn´t there when I did it for the first time. When I first tried it, it tasted like cookies! (Without the sliced coconut and removing 20 gr of coconut oil).
This is the same recipe which has come all along with me this Christmas, from one house to another, from one country to another. This has nothing to do with any bought granola, no matter how organic the granola is. There will be always a lot more of sugar.
And of course, you can always say the famous….I DON´T HAVE TIME! And then, I should remind you that this type of recipe is a genuine familiar ally. You make a big pot one day, and as it can be kept in a closed container for two months, you won´t need to worry about it every week. And besides, you won´t have for breakfast the same everyday, it is good to change: some porridge now that it is so cold, some toasts, pancakes…It is truly an investment in every way. And even more, it was my Christmas present for my sister and her family! I put twice the recipe amount in a beautiful big pot and voilà! Plenty of homemade love!
You already know that I am mad about crunchy food and since what I like most about granola is the chunky stuff, here it is an infallible tip: stretch it in a tray, crush it with a moist hand and cook it in the oven at 160º C for at least half an hour (in this case, for 40 minutes) turning the tray halfway through the cooking but without stirring it. When you take it out from the oven, let it cool and then, you can add your preferred dried fruit (blueberries, raisins, sun dried pitted peaches…) and mix then carefully. Power to the crunchy stuff! With yogurt, almond milk, fruit or even alone as a snack…and you can add any nuts or seeds you like, always sticking to the original amount. It is simply delicious if you use sunflower seeds and that way, you won´t have to crush anything….
There are no excuses to buy boxes of cereals, no matter how convenient they may look like. Try it out and I can assure you that you won´t buy them again!
Ingredients (for 1.100 gr)
450 gr of oats without gluten
120 gr of oat bran
60 gr of ground flax
110 gr of almonds
100 gr of cashews
50 gr of sliced coconut
210 gr maple syrup
1/4 + 1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
140 gr of coconut oil
2 tsp of vanilla essence
2 tbsp of water
100 gr of dried cranberries
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 160º C. Weight the coconut oil in a medium metal bowl and put it inside the oven so that it can start to get melted.
- Chop the nuts and grind the flax seeds in a grinder. Throw everything into a large bowl along with the rest of the dry ingredients (except the blueberries): oats, oat bran, salt, cinnamon and the sliced coconut.
- Check if the coconut oil has melted and add maple syrup, water and vanilla essence. Stir well with a stick until it has a homogenous consistency and pour it over the oats bowl stirring until everything is well moistened. Stretch it on a tray with baking paper (you might need to use two trays because there will be quite a lot). Wet your hands and crush it. The result needs to have a thickness of about 1 cm.
- Put it inside the oven for 40 minutes, and turn it in the tray halfway through cooking but without stirring it.
- Weight the 100 gr of blueberries.
- When you take the granola out of the oven, remember that it needs to have a nice uniform golden brown colour, let it cool in an oven grill. When it gets cold, mix it with the blueberries breaking it a little.
- Keep it in an airtight pot.
- Enjoy!