No Bake Granola!

So it turns out that I love food! All I've been thinking about the last few days is carbohydratesin combination with each other. Like right after dinner I had this brilliant thought about Oatmeal with banana, brown sugar and peanut butter. If i wasn't so stuffed from eating copious amounts of bread for the last 2 hours, i might have made it. Also, there were an insane number of baked goods in the house last week, so we're having a moratorium on baked goods until mid Feb (to coincide with Jeopardy with IBM's Watson)

Ok mostly I've been thinking about oatmeal. And granola. There's this adorable little bistro in town (you can tell that I live in village instead of a hamlet because we have bistros instead of cafes) that has very delicious granola. So I've been dreaming about it since Friday. It was homemade, and chewy, and was just delicious.

Ps. Bistro, according to my lovely life partner, comes from the Russian word meaning fast, which then got absorbed into the French language back when French was the language of the hoitey-toitey. or something like that. it also turns out that I'm bad at listening sometimes.

Anyway - I was reading through one of my Mollie Katzen cookbooks, and came across this recipe for dry roast granola - or as you can also call it "no bake granola". I added some flavoring to it - but in general it's a great starter recipe because you can add anything you want to it! It's more like museli than clumpy granola, but holllllyyyy cow, it's delicious. I think the key is the spices.

No bake granola -

Adapted from Mollie Katzen's "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest". Mollie Katzen and I had a fun weekend.

Here's what you need:

1 cup rolled oats (not quick oats, but old-fashioned, irish or steel-cut will work!)

1/3cup -1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used pistachio and cashew, or you can use peanuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans, etc)

Heat a large pot - or if you have it, a cast iron skillet - and add the oats and nuts. stir constantly for about 5 mins, until they begin to get toasty.

Add:

1/3 c. wheat germ. (the store I was at had honey cruch wheat germ. best idea ever)

1/3 c. sunflower seeds

1/3 c. shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened, whatever you have)

(1/3 c. sesame seeds, if you have 'em)

Roast for another 5-10 minutes. Stir constantly, and seriously, be careful because wheat germ can burn quickly.

Add in:

1/4c. - 1/3c. packed brown sugar

1/4 ts. salt (if your nuts are unsalted)

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp cloves

1/8 tsp nutmeg

(or, you know, about 1 tsp pumpkin spice. we all know my love of everything pumpkin.

Drizzle on some honey to make it stick a little bit more, and if you have a massive sweet tooth, like me.

Roast for another 2-5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Stir in 1/2 cup raisins.

Remove from heat, store in air tight containers.

if you're lucky you too can make a mess of your kitchen!