Basic Granola
Photograph: Colwyn Murphy
Saturday mornings in our home are usually for muesli making. While this sounds totally crunchy and like a whole lot of hard work, it is truly the simplest recipe and my little people love getting their hands stuck in. Each week they choose the nuts, seeds and dried fruit… or cocoa… that will be going into the next batch and breakfasts are in the bag for the next week. NO, the process is not all as peaceful as this picture might look. We’re cooking with kids here! And that inevitably involves boundary testing along with finger-licking batch testing. They argue about who has done more, who has more room, whose turn it is. There may even be tears at times. BUT, this is life, this is motherhood and they’re learning. They’re learning about community and what nourishing themselves involves. They love eating what they’ve created and I love knowing that if they are eating cereal some mornings, it’s not your box-standard cardboard. Nourished little bods… until the next meal.
Ingredients
500g organic oats (gluten-free if possible but organic is vital)
2 tbsp ground flax seeds and-or hemp seeds
2 tbsp chia seeds
1/4 cup seeds of your choice (we love sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds), coarsely chopped
2 tbsp unsulphured desiccated coconut
Pinch of Himalayan salt
5 tbsp coconut oil
5 tbsp pure maple syrup*
Method
Photograph: Colwyn Murphy
Preheat oven to 150C (302F). Divide the dry ingredients between two baking dishes. Lightly whisk the coconut oil and maple syrup until it emulsifies slightly (kids love this job!). Then pour the liquid over the dry ingredients and let little hands do the the work so it’s all evenly coated and infused with love and enthusiasm. Bake for 20 minutes. Then turn off the heat and leave the trays in the oven to slowly dry out. Once cool and crunchy, store in glass jars for the week ahead.
Serve with milk of your choice. Our favourites are almond or buckwheat. Top with berries, banana or other seasonal fruit and you’re good to go.
* Make sure it’s pure and not maple-flavoured syrup (usually corn syrup which is about as far as you can go from nourishment). The real sweetener is full of antioxidants and minerals like Vitamin B2, zinc, magnesium, calcium and potassium. The amount used in this recipe is just enough to sweeten it lightly and no one ends up wanting to add other sweeteners at the table.
NOTE: If you can readjust your budget to go organic with these ingredients, please do. Standard grains and seeds today are usually genetically modified and/or highly sprayed with pesticides which are never removed in the production process. These pesticides are essentially antibiotics, destroying the gut microbiome DAILY and if Roundup has been used, they function like a chelating agent in your gut, binding and sucking out vital minerals that your body should be absorbing!!