Planet Cheapskate

Breakfast of Cheap Champions

Cheap eats Comments (1)

Homemade granola!  We started down this road when we saw how much wheat filler, and we’re not talking healthy wheat germ, gets added to the store-bought stuff.  So no matter how healthy it may appear on the box front, you’re paying a lot of money for some good things, plus (at best useless) filler.  And you need to eat it fast, since it’s on the road to Stalesville very quickly.

If you’re now rolling your eyes (we can hear it!) at the thought of the time it takes to make your own granola, consider this: with this recipe you’re getting the heart-healthy benefits of  slow-cooking oatmeal, without doing the slow-cooking every morning that’s necessary to create it.  And the time you’ll need is not much, trust us–toss these ingredients together, throw it into a large baking dish, and then cozy it into the oven with something else that’s already cooking.  Voila–tasty, healthy, cheap.  Enough talk, get crackin’.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup heart healthy oil (except pure olive oil)
1/2-3/4 cup honey
1/2 cups of rolled oats (don’t get that instant junk, in fact, avoid it altogether, all the time)
1/2 cup of roasted or raw almonds
1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
Optional: 1/2-1 cup of dried fruit, some wheat germ, other nuts

Mix together your oats, almonds, sunflower and sesame seeds.  Pour your oil (we use a blend of canola and light olive oil) into your mixing cup and swirl it around to coat the sides of the measuring cup before pouring it into the granola.  Place your honey into the same cup to measure it, and the oil will help the honey slide out of the cup.  Add honey to the granola and mix together.  Put all of this into a large baking dish or onto a cookie sheet.  Flatten down with a spatula and slide it into the oven, preheated to 350-400 degrees.  Don’t wander away, you’ll need to turn it with the spatula every 15 minutes.  Brown it, don’t burn it!

When it’s a nice, even brown, pull it out and add your dried fruit, etc.  Serve with milk or soy beverage, plus some yogurt, if it’s at hand.  (Other nice toppings include maple syrup and coconut, but we save these for special-occasion granola, as they can be a pricey addition.)

Store in an airtight container.

This recipe is meant as a suggested guideline.  Try different ingredients and see what works for you.    You can use apple sauce instead of oil, for instance; or brown sugar might stand in for honey.  Our favorite dried fruits are pineapples and dates, but raisins and cranberries are also tasty.

Anyway you make it, the result is versatile as well: breakfast, snack, ice cream topping–along with the benefits of eating sunflower seeds, oats, and nuts.

Bon appetit!

—the Editors, on September 11, 2009