Granola Girl

Jarred Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, says that civilization advanced in the Middle East (to begin with) and spread because of cereal grasses. Catch the second episode in the series on Netflix for more information. He was specifically talking about wheat and barley, but I would like to pay homage to the another cereal grass: oat.

I've enjoyed eating oats since a child when Grandma Kiser would cook rolled oats for breakfast, laced with sugar and whole milk. MMMM. These days I prefer my oats as a topping for granola, and I must thank an unusual source for my new favorite breakfast food: McDonald's. Read closely because this will be the only time you'll ever hear me say a good word about McDonald's. While I understand they are not the cause of what is wrong in the food world, to me, they at least represent all that is wrong with food in the world: big agribusiness, CAFO's (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), government subsidies that make bad-for-you-food affordable and healthy fresh fruits and vegetables less so. I could go on, but I've promised myself I would rant less here.

Why do I credit McDonald's with my love of yogurt topped with granola? Like many people, I left the house one morning without breakfast and was starving, so I stopped at the golden arches looking for the least bad-for-me item on the menu. I saw yogurt, fruit and granola on the list and bought one. It was the last one I ever purchased, but I started making my own granola and topping it with frozen fruit. McDonald's had a good idea, but they put too much sugar in theirs, beginning with the flavored vanilla yogurt and continuing with sweetened berries. Plus, it was way too small.

Initially, I was buying granola from Day Spring, but even their granola seemed to have too much sugar in it for our liking. I searched through cookbooks and Epicurious.com to find a recipe. Now, granola is one of the few things I can make blind-folded because it's one of the few things I make over and over again.

1. Preheat your oven to about 4oo degrees, I make mine 410 because it seems to work better.

2. In a large bowl, I mix 4-1/2 cups of oats. I'm not sure if they're quick cooking or old fashioned because I buy them in bulk at Earth Fare. To this I add 1/4 cup flax seed and 1/4 cup wheat germ. Mix it up.

3. While your oven is heating up, get a small saucepan and add the following:

3 Tablespoons butter, 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup cane sugar (I had to use molasses for this batch as I was out of cane syrup), 1/4 cup raw local honey (just because it tastes better. I buy mine from Bee-Mac Apiaries on Waverly Parkway at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ben McGehee), and 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring. I used to use vanilla extract until I read that high temperatures evaporate too much of the goodness from real extract. Now I save the real thing for baking.

4. Thoroughly mix the liquid into the dry ingredients before spreading onto a baking sheet and top with your choice of nuts. For this batch, I used slivered almonds. Set your timer for 15 minutes and wait. When the timer goes off, stir the granola so that more of the mixture gets exposed to the heat. Set your timer for 5 minutes. You keep doing this last step until the granola is the texture and color you desire. For this amount, it took three repetitions of stir and wait.

Voila! Now you're ready to put the finished product in an air-tight container and enjoy yogurt and granola for the rest of the week.

I like to use Greek yogurt because it tastes richer and more satisfying to me. We top our yogurt and granola with organic blueberries or raspberries since berries are some of the most pesticide-laden fruit. We're using the last of the summer berries I picked at Randle Farms in Auburn.

Bon appetit!