Not Another Granola..

I promise we aren’t becoming a breakfast blog.. or even a food blog. But when I called mum to tell her the cardamom granola recipe was up for her to try, I had a total head-smack moment, because of course I hadn’t made sure to use ingredients my mum typically has on offer.

Bonus, Mum. I used the lemon mixing bowl for the shoot, it’s adorable!

It wasn’t too much hassle (ok, none) to get through that entire batch of granola in only 4 days, and give myself the excuse to whip up another batch, this time using brown sugar. I actually prefer this, especially since I feel that brown rice syrup is just not as sweet as some of the others I use, and lacks any depth of flavour. As for maple, it can be plain expensive, and when I buy it in the more reasonable 1L jugs it always disappears before the pancakes get a look in. Somehow the large plastic jug renders all portion control and personal limits void.

I managed to pick up a large bag of madagascan vanilla pods on Amazon a little while ago, and I’ve been scraping them into just about every sweet thing I’ve made recently. The leftover, scraped pods smell incredible so I’ve been loathed to chuck them out. Instead I’ve been popping them into a bag of caster sugar, but I might look into some of Food 52’s ideas instead, vanilla fleur de sel sounds like a handy new granola ingredient.

If vanilla pods aren’t something you have in the pantry, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract will do, or substitute for a flavour extract or spice of your choosing (cinnamon, perhaps).

Brown Sugar Granola

600 g jumbo oats

200 g unsweetened coconut flakes

150 g pecans + 50 g cashews + 100 g walnuts (or 300g mixed nuts) roughly chopped

2 tsp salt

1 vanilla pod (optional)

125 g light brown sugar (or light muscovado)

160 ml olive oil

2 Tbsp tapioca starch or corn flour

60 ml soya milk

1. Preheat the oven to 125C
2. Mix the oats, coconut and nuts, and salt in a large bowl until salt and spices are well distributed.
3. Use a stand mixer or stiff whisk to beat all the remaining ingredients, until the mixture isn’t grainy, this will take a few minutes.
4. Add the wet to the dry ingredients. Mix well (with hands if you don’t mind getting sticky) until everything is well coated.
5. Distribute the mixture over two shallow pans lined with greaseproof paper, do not pat down, but allow it to collect into clumps.
6. Bake for 55-75 min, turning the granola over gently every 10-15 mins. Remove from the oven when toasted light golden, test a few flakes for crispness by allowing them to cool on the counter before tasting. The soy-milk means this granola needs a low and slow bake, so keep turning and testing it.
7. Cool completely on the trays, before store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2-3 weeks.

Cardamon olive oil granola

I’ve been on a crazy granola kick lately. So much so I’ve been buying jumbo oats by the 5kg on our subscribe and save, and our house has such thing as a Only On Weekends cereal rule. We both dodge this one by conveniently not counting non-breakfast servings, or handfuls grabbed on the fly, the latter of which this granola is astoundingly good for.

It’s incredible what a bit of salt does for a mainly sweet thing, somehow it transforms something I’ll generally leave or moan about it being too sweet, into a rave-review repeat recipe I’m diving into upon each passing. I’m a bit of a salt fiend, but this recipe doesn’t over-do it. In any case your cookies need a little salt to cut the sweet too, believe me. Olive oil is a another weird one for a sweet breakfast cereal, but I urge you to try it over subbing for a flavourless oil (e.g. sunflower oil, refined coconut oil) which would work equally well, but you would certainly miss out not trying the olive version at least once. We go as far as to use Extra Virgin Olive Oil, for a big flavour impact. Go light if you wish, or half-and-half, I’ve done all on occasion and it comes down to preference. This is something I stuck to from the original recipe I’ve been switching up to my own granola fantasies for a while. There are more than a few variations on http://orangette.net/

If cardamom conjures only Indian recipes in your mind, I hope you’ll find this opens you up to the amazing idea of putting cardamom in sweets. I really got put onto the idea through my recent addition and new favourite on my recipe book shelf, The Homemade Vegan Kitchen. Miyoko uses cardamom in her sweet pastry dough, and it’s fantastic. I can’t wait to have an excuse to make it into a chocolate babka again, cardamom and dark chocolate are a great combination.

I smash the heck out of my hazelnuts in a bag with a rolling pin. It works well when I’m feeling too lazy to set up the food processor.

Of course the cardamom is completely optional, cinnamon is another one we like. Equally, the maple syrup can be easily subbed for brown rice syrup (which is cheaper, but has none of the flavour), or any other similar natural liquid sweetener, this is one of those recipes you can keep playing with. This is a fairly large batch, and you will need two shelves in your oven to bake it all at once. Sometimes I’ll up the batch to 900g of oats, but demand is getting crazy in our household so I’m only time-saving. Just as easily you could half this recipe and fit it all on one tray.

Cardamon Olive oil Granola

600 g jumbo oats

150 g unsweetened coconut flakes

100 g pecans + 100 g hazelnuts + 100 g cashews + 100 g walnuts, roughly chopped

2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cardamom (optional)

240 ml  maple syrup (or brown rice syrup)

160 ml olive oil

150 g mixed raisins and cherries (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 150C
2. Mix the oats, coconut and nuts, salt, and cardamom in a large bowl until salt and spices are well distributed. (Do not add the raisins, these are added after baking).
3. Mix the maple syrup and olive oil, then add to the dry ingredients. Mix well (with hands if you don’t mind getting sticky) until everything is well coated.
4. Distribute the mixture over two shallow pans lined with greaseproof paper, do not pat down, but allow it to collect into clumps.
5. Bake for 45-55 min, turning the granola over gently every 10-15mins. Remove from the oven when toasted golden, and allow to cool on the trays.
6. Once cool, add the mixed raisins and cherries if using. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 2-3 weeks.

Ghosts and toast

Isn’t it always when you have plenty to do, that you end up being swamped by some ghastly flu. This was meant to be quite a full weekend, we had a far away funeral to attend, and then time visiting my parents, something I’ve been desperate to find the time to do after our last visit got rained off by flu! But isn’t that the way, all the worry that comes with making the big trip is enough to let those nasties take hold.

I did get a last hoorah before succumbing to a shivering, wheezing mess. My bestie, Nat, her mum and 2 year-old met up with Rob and me in Hastings for the day. I’d not been before, and Rob hadn’t done the sites, so we were enthused to find it was both quaint and quirky, just our kind of town. We’ve actually got a soft spot for sea-side towns, and with all the hills it was strangely reminiscent of where we went to university together.

Rob has been bringing up the tale of the Hawkhurt smugglers gang ever since I got to Kent. They are our local historical bandits, so we had to pay a visit to the Smugglers Adventure Experience while we had the chance (and excuse of a child in tow).

The unguided tour takes you through a winding trail of rooms and passages in St Clements Caves. Despite not being much of a fan of being in caves or underground, it was pleasant to feel like a rabbit in a burrow, and little Hu wasn’t worried about the dark (or the ghosts!) at all.

We spent ages looking around, and then took another hilly walk to Eat @ The Park café in Alexandra Park to try out their vegan options. As usual, we couldn’t possibly choose two different things off the menu, the clear winner for both of us was always going to be English breakfast.

That’s some thick toast, fried mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, facon, sausage, beans and a hash brown, and I believe it was £5.50, which is brilliant if you ask me. Everything was lovely. We didn’t get to sample their paninis, but I saw several options, and vegan cheese appeared to feature, so we will have to return another day to try that too.

Here is their page at Happy Cow (restaurant guide).

We can’t wait to go to Hastings again, and I’m so glad we had such a great excuse to take a stroll around. However, maybe I’ll leave the coastal exploring until I’m rid of The Dreaded Lurgy.

Until next time,