the granola type

when we started this blog, I promised myself it wouldn’t become the kind of blog where every post begins with an apology: “sorry for the lack of posts!” “I’m a bad blogger, I know.” but it’s been three weeks. sorry for the lack of posts, friends!

I’ve been making good use of my time though, by making about six batches of this granola. not that that took up all of the three weeks, in fact, actually preparing it took very little time. and then it just needed to sit in the oven for a bit.

time was also spent reading about this idea/challenge, to halve the grocery budget for the month, while still eating well - eating whole foods, lots of fresh veg, all the good stuff. I haven’t set myself such a challenge (yet), but it was interesting to see what kind of tricks people used to spend less money on food. the number one thing that everybody named: make a menu plan for the week. that way, you don’t buy food on a whim, and you’ll end up with less veggies in the fridge dying a slow and useless death. we've been trying it for a couple of weeks now, and it really works. it feels good to waste less (I hate chucking out food, but somehow it always just seemed to happen - going through the fridge and finding another lifeless paprika. or worse.), and frankly, to not always have to think about what we’re going to eat at the last minute. I can imagine it won’t work that way for everybody, that it might feel boring and inflexible - and there have been a fair few times when there has been a change in The Plan here. but there’s something about the easiness of even having a plan that’s working for me, right now.

the subject of money and the money spent on food is complicated and touchy. let me just say one thing: what I loved about the way heather writes about this budget challenge is the way she approached it, from the point of a sense of abundance rather than from the viewpoint of deprivation. making this granola might not be the cheapest food ever. but I sure like spending that money at the healthfood store better than giving it to Kellogg’s.

chocolate granola

adapted from here

heat the oven up to 150 degrees celsius.

mix 300 gr oat flakes, 65 gr chopped almonds, 50 gr spelt puffs (or rice puffs, or millet puffs, whichever are easily available to you) and 65 gr pumpkin seeds. spread out onto a lined baking tray.

in a small pan, heat up 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup honey, 2 tablespoons soft brown sugar, 1 tablespoon butter or oil, a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of real vanilla. let the butter and the sugar melt. then pour the mixture over the oat flakes, and stir to combine.

put in the oven for about 45 minutes. stir every once in a while, to make sure everything bakes evenly.

let cool completely, then decant into a glass container (or, in our house, in a huge old tupperware), and add 80 gr chopped dark chocolate and a handful of raisins.

this recipe is pretty adaptable. you can use 2/3 cup maple syrup instead of the water and honey, add some coconut flakes, experiment with the nuts or seeds you put in, maybe substitute dried cranberries for the raisins... enjoy!

- anne