Homemade granola

I have not yet mastered making excellent homemade granola. In fact, my homemade granola is often passable, at best. But with Naked Granola selling for $4 for 12 ounces ON SALE (that’s $5/pound) and other granolas nearly as pricey—as well as the fact that most commercial granola contains a lot of added sugars—I soldier on with my granola-making.

Part of my problem is that I always worry that the oats are too raw, so that most of my granolas verge on being on this side of burned.

So, this is a recipe in-process. I’ll post more tips and suggestions for refinement as I figure them out.

Tip: Though most recipes call for making granola in long, shallow pans, the easiest way to cook it is to use a large cast-iron pot. This way, when stirred, the flakes don’t fall out of the pot, as they’re likely to when using pans. You can also heat up the liquid parts of the granola in the same pot, on top of the stove. And there should be some nutritional benefit to using cast iron.

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 250-300 degrees. (250 degrees is about the normal temperature, but will require more intervention and cooking time. 300-325 will speed things along, but at risk for over-browning).

Ingredients:
-½ cup canola oil
-¼- ½ cup sweetening (honey, maple syrup, brown sugar, or any combination of them)

Pour these ingredients into a cast iron pan and heat on medium-medium low until they melt together. Whisk. Then add:

-4 cups whole (not quick) oats
-chopped nuts of some kind, around 1-2 handfuls (suggested: pecans, peanuts, sliced almonds toast well, whole almonds with skins do not—the same is true for hazelnuts)
-1/2-1 cup of some other grain with a different texture, for variety (like puffed millet or puffed rice)

Possible flavorings:
-vanilla extract, orange oil/extract or lemon extract (added to liquid ingredients, prior to adding dry)
-cinnamon, powdered cardamom or ginger—or a combination of all three (add to dry)

Stir well until coated with the sweet, oily goo, then pop into the oven (no lid).

Check the granola every 10 minutes or so and stir with a large spoon. You can go for longer stretches when the oven is at a lower temperature, especially at the beginning, but 20-30 minutes into it, you’ll need to start checking more frequently or turn off the oven for the last 10 minutes.

(Hint: during the 10-minute intervals, you can do a series of short exercises, or wash the dishes—don’t try to do anything that requires a long stretch of attention).

Pull out of oven when it reaches desired level of brownness. Cool. Store in a container with a tight lid. (I find large Mason jars the best.) Add raisins or dried fruit to container and shake in, if desired.

For breakfast, serve with unsweetened granola (especially if you used a lot of sweetening).

Granola snack: In a small bowl or custard cup, mix equal parts of granola and peanut butter; add a little honey, to taste. Little kids seem to like this. Leave it in the cup, to serve (don’t bother to shape). Add chocolate chips, if desired.

What we ate: June 23-27

Monday

leftover-from-Sunday Thai-barbecued chicken and pork loin, salad, bread

(PE ate at a friend's house.)

Tuesday

TA had braces tightened that afternoon, so we ate soft food.

refried beans (pintos mushed up with oil and fried garlic), guacamole, soft (pressure cooked) white rice

What PE ate:

soft rice with raisins and pecans, slice of provolone cheese, fresh peas, strawberry keifer

Wednesday

PE had a friend over for dinner who is as picky as she is, but who will eat any kind of breakfast food.

Two main dishes: 

• For girls, M and friend's mom: omelets with sausage, fresh chives and Swiss cheese, garlic bread

•For D (who had eggs that a.m.): sausages with sauteed broccoli and garlic, thin spaghetti, garlic bread

vegetable side for omelet: broccoli (some set aside from other dish) with sauteed celery

Thursday

leftover spaghetti turned into Asian-peanut noodles (adding mushrooms, matchstick carrots, chopped zucchini and tofu, and served with soy sauce-peanut sauce)

What PE ate:

matchstick carrots (set aside, uncooked), noodles with shredded cheese, fresh tofu 

Friday

cheese foccacia with basil, calzone (with mozzarella and salame), sauteed spinach with pine nuts

What PE ate:

calzone, peas

What We Ate: June 16-20

Monday

leftover (from Sunday night's dinner) Mexican pork tenderloin, refried beans, tortillas, frozen spinach sauteed in olive oil with pine nuts

What PE ate:

quesadilla, peas

Tuesday

multi-pizzas: 1 small foccacia; 2 ham-swiss cheese calzone; medium 2-cheese pizza with homemade tomato sauce; frozen green beans

What M ate:

PE ate 2-cheese pizza but M. couldn't eat any without any goat cheese handy, so she stir-fried some broccoli and chicken breast with garlic and soy sauce

Wednesday

We went camping...and ended up eating out when the campfire went out

Thursday

(after getting home late and tired...)

marinated chicken breasts (which didn't get cooked Wed. night), broiled; sliced zucchini dipped in cornmeal and fried; gnochi

What PE ate:

Trader Joe's chicken potstickers; peas, tofu chunks

Friday

Double-duty dinner: PE had a friend over--they wanted a "breakfast supper." They had:

scrambled eggs, toast, baked sausage, orange juice; later, for dessert, fruit salad

The rest of us had:

sausages sliced up, linguine with tomato sauce (leftover and frozen from Tuesday's dinner), salad, fruit salad and cookies for dessert

What We Ate: June 9-13

Monday

This is the first day we can't remember what we had--we know it had something to do with plain sausage and spicy sausage... PE ate the plain

Tuesday 
Another power outage... dinner started on the stove and then left unfinished as we scrambled to find a restaurant with power

Wednesday
pasta primavera with leftover, cut-up chicken breast (and any vegetable hanging out in the fridge, including broccoli) -- this was going to be dinner on Tuesday

What PE ate:
noodles with cheese, chicken, green peas

Thursday

foccacia - one pie with shredded mozzarella (half with sausage and fresh tomato, other half plain); one pie with goat cheese, tomato, dried basil; tomato-vegetable soup with sour cream; green beans.

What PE ate:

part of half-pie without tomato, carrots

Friday

frozen/thawed out/frozen spaghetti sauce with black olives, on thin spaghetti; leftover foccacia; leftover green beans

What PE ate:

foccacia

2-Minute Ranch Dressing

[I mentioned making ranch dressing in one of my "What We Ate" posts but now I can't find it. Someone asked me for it the other day, so I'll give it its own post. As I said in that post, if you make your own yogurt and always have it on hand, making your own ranch dressing is a logical step since you already have half of the main ingredients.]

Note: equal measure here means one-half cup, one cup, etc.

• equal measure of yogurt (any kind) or buttermilk or sour cream (if you only have it and don't mind it being rich)
• equal measure of mayonnaise (any kind)
• few sprinkles of dried garlic powder (you can use fresh garlic, but it will have to be used right away)
• squeeze of lemon juice or a little vinegar, to taste (you'll need more vinegar if you use sour cream)

Other possible additions:
dried onion powder
dried or fresh chives
herbs, like fresh or dried oregano or basil

Make it in a measuring cup so you can measure, stir and pour from the same container.

When you've used what you want right away, put in a glass jar for the fridge. Depending on how much vinegar you added, it will stay fresh for a couple of days, sometimes longer, but it's best to use up within 5 days--so don't make much more than you can use quickly. One-half cup portions usually works for us.

Once you see how easy this is to make, you'll wonder why you were spending $3 for a bottle for store-bought--and this way, you avoid the MSG.

Tip: This is an easy thing for kids to make and they like to experiment adding new flavors each time.

What We Ate: June 2-6 (Power outage dinners)

This was an unusual week for us. D. went out of town on Wed. and that evening we had massive storms and the power went out, leaving us to hightail it to a restaurant with electricity. When the power came back 19 hours later, we had to throw food out and started to eat whatever was semi-thawed in the freezer. So, we didn't make a lot of fresh food this week.

Monday
leftover chicken pot pie from Sunday night (which D. had made), salad

Tuesday
bay scallops with potatoes (adapted from "Scallops Oreganata" in Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen), no time to make a vegetable, orange juice

Why this didn't work:
This is not a dish to make when it is nearly 6:30, everyone is hungry and you've got scallops that can be easily sauteed in 5 min. Even with microwaving the potatoes in water to speed up their boiling, it took nearly an hour (labor-intensive hour) from start to table and no one was wild about it. Far happier were they with scallops sauteed with cream, sherry and mushrooms, which I made a few weeks ago, but alas, I had no cream or mushrooms on hand and thought this would be a good way to use up some potatoes. I also didn't have all the ingredients Lidia had listed, such as onions and tomatoes and the chives I substituted for onions just didn't do the trick.

Moral of the story: When you've splurged on scallops, part of the cost is convenience, so it's silly to waste them on labor-intensive cooking.

Wednesday
dinner at Panera, during the storm

Thursday
a half-thawed frozen pizza with melted-ice cream shakes

Friday
omelets with goat cheese, chives and ham (TA and D gone), garlic toast (from thawed out bread), fresh carrots and peas or salad
(PE actually ate this without adaptation)

What We Ate: May 26-30

Monday
big old roasted chicken, sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, bread

What PE ate: 

chicken and sweet potatoes

Tuesday

leftover chicken, cranberry sauce, rice, leftover broccoli sauteed with celery and zucchini; pumpkin pie (with homemade crust--made two, froze one*)

Wednesday

spaghetti sauce with meat, linguine, salad

What PE ate:

linguine with melted shredded cheese, sweet potato, bread

Thursday

leftover spaghetti with meat sauce and black olive meatless tomato sauce

Friday

quiche (bacon, goat cheese, fresh tomatoes, fresh herbs, chives) with homemade crust*, green beans, bread

(PE was at a sleepover...)