Flashes of Panic

Over the summer, I got myself a copy of my mother’s granola recipe. It’s not original with her, she picked it up at a long-gone natural foods store in our town, and I discovered on leafing through Noah’s More-With-Less Cookbook that it fits right in the mold of a generic home cereal recipe. However, I remember her making it when I was inside four bits old, and I used to eat it dry with as big a shovel as I could fit in my mouth.

After a few seasons of trying to find store-bought granola that matched my own idea of what “granola” should be (I don’t need dried fruit, but I do need some honey or other sweetener), this year the per-pound prices started reaching four and five dollars and I figured I needed to start making my own. It turns out it’s really easy, and so far it’s been a smashing success. There’s a lot of wiggle room in the recipe for improvising with what I have and don’t have, so the four or five batches I’ve made have all been slightly different, but all good.

This is what’s written on the paper:

• 4 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup wheat flakes (wheat flakes are the rolled oats of wheat)
• 1 cup wheat germ
• 1 cup crushed walnut pieces
• 1 cup sunflower seeds (raw, hulled)
• 1/2 to 1 cup sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

Mix all this together in a big bowl. Then, in a pyrex glass, heat

• 1/2 cup {vegetable|corn|canola|whatever} oil
• 1/2 cup {honey|maple syrup|molasses}
• Vanilla

No, I have no guidance for quantity on the vanilla, and if you know my mother, you know she never measured it anyway.

Mix that liquid in with the bowl. It will be pretty dry in the end but try to get it evenly mixed. Spread it on lightly greased cookie sheets (I use brownie pans) and bake it at 325 F for ten minutes, turn it, then five more. (I go ten, actually; it’s deeper in my brownie pans than it would be on cookie sheets.) Cool before serving or storing.

I’ve added in various quantities to different batches, teff grain (after reading that it can be substituted for sesame seeds, I just added it to the sesame seeds) and pumpkin seeds. I expect you could use oat flakes and germ for people with wheat allergies; if you know a store with good bulk bins there’s all kinds of neat stuff that could go in.

It’s almost secondary at this point, because I know I couldn’t buy granola I like this much, but because the price per pound for every one of the ingredients is lower than that of commercial granola, the cost is pretty good. I’d need to suss out the proportions in the recipe to figure an exact price, but I’m guessing I’m paying under $3/pound for it. I’m kind of tempted to try making my own hot oatmeal when I reach hot-cereal weather. And sometimes, like tonight when I made banana bread, I can double up in the oven, slipping in the cereal while the bread is baking or putting it in after a pizza has come out.