GF Granola Revealed!

One of the hardest things about going GF/corn-syrup-free is breakfast. For me, anyway. What does this have to do with bento? Well, if I'm making lunch, I don't want to be making breakfast at the same time. You have to draw the line somewhere or you'll just turn into a crazy person. Cereal is easy, but most GF cereals are expensive. My husband, bless him, would make eggs or Cream of Buckwheat or miso soup in the morning. But he has to get ready, too. Our kitchen is too small for everyone to be in there making their own breakfast. What to do? Then, two days ago I made an amazing discovery in the Indian section of the grocery store: Poha.

Poha is precooked, rolled and dried rice flakes used to make quick and savory Indian breakfasts. It has been around for ages, of course, but the light bulb never went off before. For you see, it has the perfect dimensions to for granola, and it is pretty cheap. Hooray! And yesterday the temperature dropped from the mid-90s to the mid-60s, the perfect conditions to turn on the oven. Clearly, the granola gods were pointing the way. Last night I made an "imperial buttload" (to use one of my husband's units of measure) of granola. It will not only make a good breakfast, but can be sent as a snack in the kids' lunch bags!

There are only three components in granola: Dry stuff, syrup and dried fruit. Dry stuff is your bulk, syrup is your glue/sweetener, and dried fruit provides little treats. You add the dried fruit at the end or it turns into little rocks in the oven.

How to make granola: Mix a bunch of dry stuff together in a bowl--leave plenty of room for mixing. Melt honey and oil in a saucepan for the syrup; you can use other sweeteners as well. Toss the syrup with the dry stuff. Toast the raw granola in the oven on cookie sheets at about 325*. (You may need to do this in several batches so as not to crowd the pan.) You will need to stir the granola every 10 minutes or so to help it toast evenly. When it is toasted to your liking, pour it into a big bowl to cool. It will still be slightly soft and damp when warm--this is a good time to toss in salt and cinnamon. Once all the granola is cooked and cooled, you can stir in the dried fruit and put it into a sealed container. Yum!

Here's what I used in this batch--of course, I just chucked things into a big bowl without measuring, and you could do the same. Just use what you have and like. I didn't add cinnamon or nutmeg this time, just a bit of salt:

~1 pound of Bob's Red Mill oatmeal
~1 pound of thick Poha flakes
several big handfuls of raw sunflower seeds
~1 pound of dry coconut
handfuls of flax seed
~1/4 cup coconut oil + 1 splash sesame oil (you can use any mild oil you have on hand)
~1 cup honey (for this amount of stuff, that made a mildly sweet granola)
dried, sweetened orange-flavored cranberries

I have used dry Cream of Buckwheat, but it's granular, not flakey--Poha is so much better. You can also add any kinds of seeds you like such as chia or sesame, and chopped nuts. For the dried fruit, you may need to cut it into smaller pieces.

Reality check here: La Segunda has decided that she hates granola. *Sigh*  But La Primera and her father are very pleased, and that's good enough for me.