Wednesday 14 January 2009

Good Ol' Granola... Tasty!


OK, so I really have been experimenting and keen to cook this week!

On Sunday I did a marathon session which included 10 portions of cottage pie with mash(5 dinners for both of us), 12 muffins, 4 portions of stifado greek stew (2 dinners), roast chicken (which made 4 portions/2 dinners and 6 portions/3 lunches as well as lots of chicken stock) and a litre of my homemade yoghurt. Hubby also made bread which was yummy and is now all gone.

I am saying all this because a) all the above probably only cost us around £12.90 in ingredients and b) because I had been hankering to cook properly. It kept me out of the 'dangerous' shops too... most dinners are now in my freezer in foil containers ready to sling in the oven and not have to cook for a night!

I made my own granola too, which you could have as follows:

Canned peaches or fresh chopped bananas
Big dollop of Natural Yoghurt
Granola sprinkled on top

I then also had a homemade muffin toasted with a little butter which was lovely. I felt sooooOooooo proud of myself to have made most of that breakfast! I can't work out how much it was but the muffins are 6.5p each, yoghurt maybe 20p and granola say 10p at a guess? It's a luxury breakfast compared to my usual porridge...

The Granola Recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

300g porridge oats
50g sunflower seeds
50g pumpkin seeds
30g linseeds or dessicated coconut
100g flaked almonds
5 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil

- Preheat oven to 180C
- Mix all dry ingredients
- Place honey and oil in saucepan and heat gently so it becomes more liquid
- Mix the honey into the dry inredients
- Line roasting tray with baking paper
- Spread the mix onto the paper evenly
- Bake for 15mins or so, maybe 20 depending on oven (may need to be stirred then roasted some more)
- Cool overnight than place into airtight jar
- Serve with jam or yoghurt or fresh fruit or all the above!




At the end of the day you can make the granola however you want by maybe using up bits you have at home - finely chopped dried apricots, raisins, crushed hazelnuts etc - anything that needs to be used. I like sunflower seeds and pumkin seeds as they are nutritious and not too expensive, but occasionally it's nice to have pecans / walnuts etc as a treat.

This batch made me a large jar full, which will easily last me a while especially as I mostly eat porridge, but when I want something different, the granola is ready & waiting to be sprinkled.

3 comments:

TabbyT said...

Mmmm all that tasty food in the freezer ready to go! Think of all the meals ou can enjoy now, with out any of the washing up!

Sol said...

Batch cooking like this not only saves you time but money and the temptation of ordering take away.

Or ganisation is a must when trying to save. Fabulous. I cant wait to start doing this again, I am trying to reduce the freezer at the moment as I want to have the kitchen floor re-tiled!

Bet you feel fab for having everything ready. throw it in the oven, sit back and relax. Great.

Sophie Gist said...

Hiya - yes definately am happy for doing that session last weekend... even last night, we made 4 more portions of fluffy boiled rice than we needed (ie 2 dinners) then froze it in tin foil containers. This is then ready to throw in the oven, could add some bits like egg to it beforehand or veggies.

Last night's dinner was fantastic - just the rice but with bits added in - bacon, a free range egg, spring onions, chopped red chilli, chopped red onion, chicken stock and coriander. Yummy and so much better than the 'special fried rice' from a take-away!