Week 8: Time to Pass it on!

Weeks ago I started cooking one recipe from Jamie Oliver's most recent book Jamie's Food Revolution and as per his request of his readers I thought I would pass that recipe on to my community. This weeks recipe comes from Kick-Start Breakfasts at just the right time; we ran out of granola.

In our home granola is almost exclusively known as breakfast. There is no need to ask our 4 yr son "what do you want?", breakfast always is granola, yoghurt and milk. We spend nearly $12 a week on gourmet granola but recently we have been looking for ways to cut back. And things like Granola, Biscotti and Bread are simple enough, cheaper than and usually better than store bought. That is why this week's pass it on is:

Granola

• 2 cups rolled oats (not instant)
• 1 cup mixed nuts (I used, walnuts, pistachios, cashews & hazelnuts, all left over from other baking projects), large nuts coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup mixed seeds (I used, sesame & pumpkin, also left over from other projects)
• 3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (personally can't stand the stuff so I skipped it)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups dried fruit (I used cranberries & raisins but your imagination is the limit)
• 5 tbsp maple syrup or honey (75 ml)
• 5 tbsp olive oil (75 ml)
• pinch of salt

 Preheat oven to 350F, gather the components. On a large baking sheet assemble the dry ingredients (excluding dried fruit), cinnamon, coconut, and pinch of salt. Drizzle maple syrup & olive oil over the dry mixture. Mix to combine everything evenly then spread out flat on the baking sheet. Bake for 5 minute intervals. Remove from oven, stir, mix and re-spread between each interval. Coarsely chop large dried fruit such as apricots while baking. Bake 25-35 mins. Mine took 25 minutes until a nice dry golden brown. Remove from oven and add the dried fruit. Let cool and pack into an air tight container.

By my estimate this is about $6 worth of granola that I made for less than half of that. I still buy my ingredients from the best sources that I can, so I can safely say that my son will still get his fancy schmancy gourmet granola.

As always if you make this recipe or share it, let me know about it and link your blog up to mine! I would love to see others pass it on. Or if you have another recipe that is simple delicious and will make others cook share that too.

For more meatless dishes go over to hey whats for dinner mom? for meatless monday ideas!