When my ds (then 14) was in yeshiva for ninth grade, he had to be in school for three meals a day. He liked taking this granola for breakfast – it’s a tasty recipe, and good for you, too!
Traditional Granola
- 8 c. rolled oats
- 1/2 c. melted butter
- 1/2 c. melted coconut oil
- 1 1/2 c. yogurt
- 2 c. water
- 1/2 c. honey
- 1 t. sea salt
- 1 t. cinnamon
Combine the first five ingredients. Pat down, cover, and leave out for 24 – 48 hours. In a separate pot, heat the honey and add spices. Add to the soaked oat mixture. Spread mixture thinly in a baking pan and bake at 200 degrees, stirring periodically, until completely dry and crispy. You can add nuts, dried fruit, coconut, or whatever else you can think of!
Note – this isn’t a very sweet recipe, and we find it perfect for our family (usually we cut the sweetener in a recipe by 50%). But you may find it’s not sweet enough; if that’s the case, add some more honey.
I make double this recipe because it’s so good that it goes fast!
Avivah
It sounds yummy!
You know, you (in great part) had me hyperventilating yesterday! 🙂
I have done some reading in the last couple of weeks (The Trouble with Boys, Nourishing Tradtitions (not for the first time), The Unhealthy Truth) and I have (sigh!) decided to push on with what seems to be inevitable — to go further outside the “norm”, both in the religous and secular worlds (eating (even more)healthily, homebirth, homeschool, babywearing, moving to a place (several times) with no Orthodox Jewish community to serve the not-yet-religious Jews there, etc, etc). However, for my family (which has severe lactose intolerance and allergies to peanuts, wheat and eggs — different people, thank G-d), we cannot implement all of the ideas that you have successfully tried with your family. I think I will start with coconut oil/products though and since you have done the footwork and described it in your blog, it will be, please G-d, easy!
Why hyperventilating??
That’s the challenge of following your conscience and living with integrity. It does seem inevitable that the more you learn, the more you go away from the crowd.
There are lots of ways to address the allergies you mentioned. Eggs – here’s a post I wrote quite a while back on egg substitutes – http://vibrantmoms.com/recipes/egg-substitutes/. In place of wheat, you can use rice, buckwheat, and other more unusual flours; I have several gluten free bread recipes. Also, coconut flour might be a great alternative to wheat flour for you when baking quick bread type of recipes. Is the allergy to peanuts or to tree nut? Peanuts is easy, tree nuts is more challenging! I’ve read of people using the GAPS or SCD diets to heal their digestive systems, and then the allergic issues often disappear or are minimized, and they can eat the formerly problematic foods at least in small quantities.
I’m hyperventilating mainly for two reasons.
We live away from any other frum Jews and so we travel a couple times a month to established communities for a minyan, companionship, kosher food, and chizuk. When you are just the weirdo family who lives in Yehupitz and need a place to stay and eat for a Shabbos, it is only a small tircha for all involved. With more constraints on what and how we eat as a family (and unfortunately, no, we haven’t found any like minded families in the communities we go to in the year we’ve been going) and all the other mishegos having a whole family stay by someone, I’m afraid we’ll become a lot less popular to have as guests. I’ve never been one to go with the crowd, but in our situation that same crowd gives us our lifeline to bit of normalcy for everyone, it isn’t a small thing.
The other is that I have never been one to make multiple meals for different people in the family and my meal plan (until the point we diagnosed my daughter’s egg and wheat allergy) had a egg based meal a week and supplemented the soup type meals with a fresh baked bread as well as quick lunches based around a sandwich. Yes, I am now learning how to use the various (and mind you, very expensive compared to even organic stoneground WW flours) alternative flours out there and non-bread based meals. And we are changing our diets to be wheat and egg free as possible. But since no one else exhibits symptoms of allergy, I don’t want to spend 5$ on dough for pizza night when WW is so much cheaper (and nicer), so last night I made two different doughs and two different types of pizza — more dishes, more work and more money. I hope our allergist is correct that she will grow out of the wheat and egg allergy in a couple of years. I have not investigated these types of diets — of course these probably will cycle into my first kvetch. 🙂
Hello Aviva, I wanted to thank you for always inspiring me with your ideas. I have to learn from you how to not be scared to try new things. I had 2 questions. One is how would you make traditional granola(your recipe) abstinent.Second question What would you suggest I bring food wise to Israel that is either more expensive there or harder to find?
Rochi – I’ll answer you in person!
Avivah, doesn’t the yogurt spoil from the heat outside?
Rina – have you read my post on soaking grains?
http://vibrantmoms.com/nutrition/soaking-grains-flours-beans-and-seeds/
The goal of soaking the oats is to ferment the oats, but the lactic acid keeps the yogurt from spoiling.
Avivah, I just read the post about soaking. Very interesting! Still, does the oat-yogurt mixture have to soak outside? Can it soak in the refrigerator?
You need the room temperature to help the oats ferment – in the fridge it would be too cold to sufficiently accomplish that in one night. You’re worried about it spoiling, right? That won’t happen. But if that’s what your comfort zone is right now, then soak them overnight in the fridge -you’ll still benefit from preparing it like that.