Grawnola

March 9th, 2010

I love the Go Raw brand of snacks but it tends to put a big dent in my purse. After trying their granola, I decided to give it a whirl myself. I changed it up a bit and came up with a great recipe.

Grawnola is quick to make so make lots as it will keep for awhile. It is a satisfying breakfast when you are wanting something more substantial to stat the day. We like it as a snack and it is a perfect travel food.

River and Gatlin are both fans of this grawnola and my hubby finishes off whatever is left so I feel it safe to say this is a family winner.

My Homemade Grawnola

  • 2 cups sprouted buckwheat or buckwheat crunchies*
  • 1 large apple, finely chopped
  • 1/8 cup chia seeds
  • 2 TBS sesame seeds
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 TBS yacon syrup
  1. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add the yacon syrup and mix, mix, mix. It takes a little time to get it incorporated into the mixture, but keep mixing and it will all become covered with the yacon.
  2. Dehydrate at 105 for 5-6 hours on teflex sheet or parchment.
  3. Once it is dehydrated, you can add goji berries and/ or raisins.
  4. Serve with fresh almond mylk and some fresh berries if you got ‘em.

Feel free to play around with adding other seeds to the mix or other dried fruits. You may also enjoy adding some other spices for variety.

*To make buckwheat crunchies:

  1. Soak raw buckwheat groats for 1-2 hours. They will be very slimy so be sure to keep rinsing until the water is clear and no longer slimy. This can be done in a colander but I find it handy to do in a nut mylk bag or my inexpensive version which is a nylon paint strainer from the hardware store. They are about $5 for a pack of 2! Do get the large or extra large size.
  2. After drained well, leave in sprout bag or bowl to sprout overnight, rinsing twice a day.
  3. For this recipe, you may use the buckwheat now or dry them in the dehydrator on 105 a few hours until completely dry and there you have it… buckwheat crunchies!

As you have seen in other posts, buckwheat crunchies are great to have on hand to add on top of smoothies. I recommend making these in a big batch since they keep for a very, very long time in a glass airtight container.You can also sprinkle them on top of fresh fruit or banana with a fruit puree for a yummy dessert!

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magnificent muesli

March 8th, 2010

muesli in a jarMy kids love their breakfast cereal. Except much of what you find on the store shelves is relatively devoid of nutrients, and is pretty pricey to boot! So we’ve experimented with alternative breakfasts. Smoothies make up the bulk of our morning meal these days, or sometimes we’ll do the mono-meal thing and eat an entire cantaloupe, honeydew, or  pineapple. But sometimes they tire of the fresh fruit thing, and are looking for something completely different. The spiced apple oatmeal fits the bill on a cold day, but on the warmer spring days we’ve been having, muesli answers the call.

I tend to make this at night, in big batches, so that its ready for breakfast the next day. I soak the nuts or seed for the milk, and since I’m rooting around in our dried fruit/nut drawer in the fridge, I pull it all out on the counter and go to town. I start with a base of buckwheat crunchies if I have a lot prepared and can share them out from my smoothie addition supply. Last week I didn’t have enough to use as the bulk of the muesli, but I did have a surfeit of rolled oats, so we went with that.

I don’t really have a recipe for this. I pour a large amount of oats into a bowl. On top of that I toss things like raisins, dried tart cherries, dried cranberries, golden raisins, and goji berries. I chop up bigger dried fruits like dates, apricots and prunes before adding them to the bowl.

muesli in nut milkNext up are the nuts and seeds. I chop bigger nuts like almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, macadamia nuts and cashews. I do tend to roughly chop bigger seeds like pumpkin and sunflower too. Then I toss in hemp and chia seeds. If I have it pre-ground, I also add some flax meal. Sometimes I have pre-soaked and dehydrated nuts on hand, sometimes I don’t. If I don’t, I rely more heavily on fruit and seeds and use the unsoaked nuts sparingly. Lucia prefers her muesli without nuts anyway, hence the second, smaller jar of her own private nutless batch.  I topped all this with a couple handfuls of my precious crunchies (is it me, or do I sound like the lovechild of Gurgi and Gollum, with my precioussss crunchings and munchings?).

Sometimes I add coconut flakes, sometimes cacao nibs. After this last batch Dante specifically requested that I leave the cacao nibs out, while I found them to be a yummy addition. Muesli is like my veggie soup  — it all depends on what I have on hand, and no two batches are exactly alike. But I can whip up a batch pretty quickly and it lasts a few days if I make enough. Luke likes it too, and can put huge dents in the supply.

They will all eat it by the handful or from a jar with a spoon on the go, but they adore muesli for breakfast with nut milk.

What have you been having to break the fast?

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