Granola
Breakfast in our house is often the most neglected of all the meals, with four wild animals, sorry children to get fed, washed and dressed and out of the house each morning it can feel overwhelming.
One of the biggest issues we face as parents is the amount sugar or children are exposed to and one of the worse culprits for hidden sugar is cereal, even cereals which appear healthy often have a large quantity of sugar. Don’t get me wrong, my kids still have Coco Pops or similar but in our house that is a treat rather than the norm. My solution was to come up with my own recipe for granola, which was tasty enough that, the kids would be happy to eat it, and Alan loves this recipe.
The recipe is adaptable, so if I have something I want to use up, extra walnuts, raisins, dried cranberries for example I just throw them into the granola mix. It’s such an easy recipe to make so it’s lovely to have the kids help, be warned though it can get a little bit messy…oats flying everywhere!! This recipe makes a large enough quantity for our family to eat it a couple of times a week for about a month.
Ingredients
540g oats
½ tsp nutmeg, ground ginger & Cinnamon
100g milled linseed
½ tsp salt
100g mixed seeds
200g mixed nuts, roughly chopped
50g coconut oil
85g honey
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Zest of 1 orange
200g mixed dried fruit
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Method
1. Preheat the oven to 150 C.
2. You will need a very large bowl, add the oats, spices (I’ve chose the flavours my family enjoy but you can choose whatever you prefer), linseed, salt, seeds, nuts and sugar, then mix.
3. Melt the coconut oil and mix with the honey and vanilla extract and add to the oat mix.
4. Add the orange zest (lemon also works well) and mix thoroughly with your hand until the whole mixture is evenly coated, this can take a bit of time.
5. Transfer the mix to a large baking tray, use two if necessary, lined with baking paper and roast in the oven for approximately 30 minutes, checking and stirring every 10 minutes.
6. The granola is ready when it is dried out and light golden in colour.
7. Leave to cool completely before storing.
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Top tip
We usually eat this granola in milk or over yoghurt, but it also makes a lovely topping for muffins.
