THE Best Granola. EVER.

After my post last week in which I claimed that I had the best granola recipe EVER, I thought that I better post the actual recipe so you can see if you like it as much as we did!  (oops!) Remember this teaser pic?

Ok, so not to toot my own horn here but my granola turned out SO good this time! I”m not sure if it was because I actually took the time to soak the oats and nuts or perhaps the added salt really helped to pronounce the flavors more- doesn’t matter because it was gooood!

I love being able to have a healthy cereal on hand on those mornings (or snack times) when you are running a bit behind or just enjoy the convenience of cereal without all the processed, empty, and EXPENSIVE ingredients that are in the boxed cereals. Did you know that manufacturers can claim that their products are “trans- fat free” if they have below .5 grams PER SERVING of trans- fat (hydrogenated oils)? I find that amazingly disgusting. Read your labels and you will see that they do indeed contain trans-fats and they just make the serving size smaller so they can legally claim that. ” Fake food” foulness to its fullest. (say that 5 times as fast as you can)  So….why not make your own super healthful and super delicious cereal?

This recipe was inspired by my very good friend Lisa Gale but I tweaked it and also added the beneficial soaking step that’s really very easy. Even easier if you  have a dehydrator. It’s very important to soak your grains and whole grain flours, even your nuts! While nuts have a slightly different reason for soaking, the benefits for doing so are significant. Your body can digest the grains and nuts so much better and you get SO MUCH more nutrition out of it. So why not take an extra 10 mins. the night before to do it?

You simply soak the oats in 1 part water with an acid solution such as whey, yogurt, buttermilk, etc., and 3 parts oats combined with about 1/2 cups whole grain flour of your choice. Say you have 3 cups of rolled outs, you would use 1 cup of an acid solution. That can be water with about 3-4 tbls. vinegar or lemon. You could also use a full cup kefir or plain yogurt. So for this recipe, you use 4 cups of oats and about 1 1/3 cups acid solution. It doesn’t have to be exact. Just be sure to add about ½ cup whole wheat flour to the soaking oats to facilitate the phytic acid break down. Your oats will be damp but not soaking wet or anything.

Let that soak for 12-24 hours then dry it out in your dehydrator at about 135 until dry or in your oven set as low as it can go. The drying only takes a few hours. I will post a more in-depth tutorial later. For the nuts you soak about 4 cups in a brine solution.( About 2 tsp. and enough water to cover the nuts) Dry the same way as you do the oats. Oh and they also tastes a lot better this way too!

Ok, enough talk…lets get to it right?

You need:

• 4 cups rolled  oats (soaked and dried always preferred)
• 1 cup walnuts (soaked and dried)
• 1/2 cup freshly ground  flax seed (you can use your coffee grinder or high powered blender)
• 1/3 cup grade B maple syrup (best flavor and more nutrition)
• 1/3 cup coconut oil-melted
• 1/4 cup grass-fed butter-melted
• 1/2 cup raw honey
• 1/2 cup coconut flakes
• 1 generous Tbls. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt

(My friend adds a bit of ground ginger, I haven’t done that yet but I bet that’s good too!) Update: I tried 1/4 tsp. of good quality ginger and it was fantastic!

Extra Add-ons include: dried cranberry’s (YUM), dried apricots, raisins, dried mango, other seeds or nuts. We use dried cranberry’s or raisins and sometimes apricots and mango!

The How to:

Now combine all of the ingredients and mix everything very well in a large bowl and spread on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. I would suggest doing this in at least two batches because you want the layers to be pretty thin so it doesn’t take all day to dry them out a bit. Now, I like my granola a bit on the crunchy side so I tend to bake it slightly longer so the final product isn’t too chewy. But you can experiment with how crunchy you like it. Just note that the granola does crisp up quite a bit as it cools-so don’t OVER cook them. I haven’t experimented with drying it in the dehydrator yet but I would imagine that it would be the most beneficial option-health wise as it would keep the beneficial enzymes in your raw honey intact but this is pretty healthy too! If any of you have tried this, please let me know how it turned out!

So, after  you have spread out the granola on the lined cookie sheets, just pop it in a 250ish degree oven for 15-30 mins depending on your desired crispiness level. Just be sure to check it every few mins or so after the first 12 mins so you don’t burn it!

Now let it cool completely (if you can!) and store in an air-tight container until you are ready to eat it! I love it the best with cold raw milk…mmm! This makes about 4-5 cups of granola.

This recipe is posted over at The Hearth and Soul Blog Hop 

and also seen on Simple Lives Thursday Blog Hop #41 and Made from scratch Tuesday