Homemade Granola by Little Chef & Little Market

by croatiaweek
December 4, 2017
in Food & Wine

Granola (Photo: Little Chef)

Croatian food blogger Mali Chef (Little Chef) joins with Mali Plac (Little Market), markets which promote local growers in Croatia to bring us a variety of different recipes. Today granola.

Good morning with good granola! Sweetened with honey and served with goat or cow milk yogurt, or with milk, or within vegan version – equally tasty maple syrup and coconut milk yogurt, or almond milk or soy milk… granola is the perfect choice for healthy day start. And if you make yourself some Turkish coffee with granola, that’s it – one of our favourite breakfasts is on the table, this time with Little Chef signature.

LITTLE CHEF & LITTLE MARKET: HOMEMADE GRANOLA

The tradition of having cereals for breakfast goes as far back in time as Classical Greece period, but in 1863 James Caleb Jackson, champion of the healthy diet, created the first recipe for what will later become known as granola.

Breakfast cereals that he named granula were unsweetened bran meal with some milk. Most likely he could not envision how popular his recipe will become decades later.

(Photo: Little Chef)

Homemade granola recipes are very popular recently. Reason for that is very simple. Once you taste it, you will never again want to buy off-the-shelf version. Preparing homemade granola does not take much time, you control how much sugar you want to add and quality of ingredients, and the most important advantage is that you can play with ingredients and add tastes that you prefer. There is no comparison in taste between off-the-shelf and homemade granola, and adding to all the benefits – homemade granola will cost you less.

Moderately sweetened and perfectly crunchy, this contagiously nice granola is perfect topped with yogurt or if you nibble it as healthy sweets!

Our extremely rich version of granola features oatmeal accompanied by roasted amaranth seeds, chopped almonds and hazelnuts, gentle coconut flakes, pumpkin seeds, dried cherries, cranberries and chokeberries. A true explosion of tastes on your plate.

HOMEMADE GRANOLA
INGREDIENTS FOR 8 TO 10 SERVINGS:

2 cups oatmeal
1 cup amaranth
1/2 cup almonds (OPG Branko Džaja)
1/2 cup hazelnuts (OPG Stjepan Fanjek)
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (OPG Andreja Petrović)
3 tablespoons dried cherries (Krezubi krokodil)
3 tablespoons dried cranberries (Krezubi krokodil)
3 tablespoons dried chokeberries (OPG Korade)
1/4 cup of coconut flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coconut butter
1/2 cup honey (Ekomedo, OPG Damir Ban)
High-quality yogurt or milk

(Photo: Little Chef)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Roast amaranth seeds in a covered high pot on middle heat – amaranth is done when the smell is nice and starts to pop like miniature popcorn.

2. Mix in large bowl oatmeal, chopped nuts, pumpkin seeds, coconut flakes and roasted amaranth.

3. Heat the oven to 120°C, cover largest sheet pan you have with baking paper.

4. Use a pan to melt coconut butter, honey and salt. Add mixture to dry ingredients and mix well. Distribute evenly in a sheet pan. Bake for half an hour.

5. Mix dried fruit when cold.

6. Serve with yogurt or milk.