I’ve been making this granola for a while, a while ago I tried to link to the recipe (from London Bakes) and it had vanished.
I love it and I have fiddled a bit with it so I’m posting it here for no other reason than it is really good and should be somewhere I can find it easily and because I eat more granola in autumn and winter so it’s time to make a batch!
I know that I cook more from scratch than most people but I don’t believe that homemade always means better, there’s loads of things that I buy, mayonnaise for example, I’m sure that if you make it yourself it’s nicer but I don’t eat a lot of it and don’t have time, so it’s just easier to buy some.
Home made granola though, is one of the things that I prefer to make at home, because it’s really simple to make, usually cheaper and lets you control the amount of sugar. My go-to bought version is this one from Dorset Cereals and it’s pretty good, it’s also pretty expensive when you consider the cost of the basic ingredients.
One of the reasons for my deep love of this granola is that it’s a basic granola made with store cupboard ingredients that you can use as a building block. The original recipe suggests cacao nibs and if you can find them AND have the money for them in your budget, they are a fabulous addition, adding a subtle chocolatey crunch. You could also use this as a basic recipe and add the dried fruit of you choice after you’ve baked it, I’ve added dried cherries and dried apricots for different batches and they work well (I have a friend who makes this version with cacao nibs and adds dried bananas, which is great for breakfast and amazing on ice cream!) You can customise it to suit you.
I find for breakfast pots the non-fruit version works best and I’m sure it would be good eaten with milk if you like milk, (personally I think milk is the devil’s drink!)
What
3 cups of oats
1 cup mixed seeds
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup sunflower oil
2 teaspoons vanilla paste or extract
How
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or non stick mat.
- Pre-heat oven to 140C
- Combine all ingredients in a bowl and spread on baking sheets
- Bake in oven for 35 ish minutes, turning once during that time, until golden brown
- Remove from oven and leave to completely cool
- Once cool, transfer to containers.
The bed at the front of this photo and the two raised beds in the background (covered with green netting) are all planted up with onions and garlic.
This was were the first courgettes and the french beans were this year and it the bit of the allotment that is next to Joe’s allotment. I was going to dig over and sow green manure but when Ma and I took the sweet peas and metal frame up, we made a new plan. Current thinking is that we are going to cover with weed fabric and at some point before March, hopefully before Christmas this will be home to three raised beds (
At the top of the plot, we need to move the rhubarb and the poorly lavender bushes. Once we’ve done that we want to mark out where the patio for the shed will be and cover that with weed suppressing fabric and mark out some areas at the top for re-siting the gooseberry bushes and wildflowers and so on.
May 2016
All shopping this week was done at Lidl on Friday night and the cost was £8.53. Not pictured but bought later in the week was a fruit salad and two packets of pasta which came to £3. So the total for the week was £11.53
Oli and I made a loaf of bread on Saturday night, which was the basis of our bacon sandwiches on Sunday morning.
I didn’t eat dinner on Sunday night, I did over the course of the weekend eat a packet of mini salamis. Living my best life right there.
Dinner was fishfingers and courgettes
On Thursday, I was still sick and ate leftover pasta for lunch and baked potatoes, chilli and broccoli for dinner (thank heavens for the freezer!)
On Friday, courgette pizza and garlic bread.
It was something more for me than just basic unhappiness because I was struggling to feel God’s presence in my life. My belief in God is one of the most basic building blocks of who I am, the sense that I’m living, as best I’m able, the life that God wants for me, isn’t even a question, it’s just who I am. Even when it’s difficult, when I was unemployed, when Stef died and when I was depressed, I knew that, hard as it was, I was meant to be doing what I was doing and that I didn’t understand it but it would come right. That God was with me. I was possibly the most optimistic depressed person in the world. I knew that I would get through it if I just kept on and I did.
I wasn’t lacking faith, so much as relationship and the things I normally do when I’m in a bad spot where not working. Last year, I spent six weeks more or less trapped in the flat. On the one hand it was nice to have the rest despite the foot pain and not being able to shower but on the other it was clear that without my mother, I’d have been absolutely buggered and pretty isolated. I came into 2016, knowing that something needed to change but not being at all sure what needed changing or how to change it.
Lidl, Tesco and Sainsburys the total spend was £14.15.
Joe is walking now and he talks a bit! He says ‘hiya’ (when he sees you or is playing peekaboo) and ttttt (ta) when he wants you to give him something. He’s also picked up his brother’s trick of looking at you and saying ‘num num num’ when you have food he’d like to taste!
I even got some love from the cat after the boys were in bed! Which is a first!
I got home on Sunday and just noodled about.
Nic Dempsey 