One gift I'm giving is to a young woman who took her nursing boards the same year I took the Minnesota Bar. She studied while being a medic at camp and I studied while living in her bedroom back at her home! For her gift I decided to give her the gift of time and a memory. Then I decided it would make a nice gift to anyone who reads this. Some editing was done, of course!
This is pretty good granola - At least that is my 2¢ ·worth!
Christmas Granola
When I was your age I had been living in a housing co-ops for several years (it was the 70’s after all!). My two favorite jobs were to bake bread and make granola. You are an amazing baker, so I am going to share my granola recipe with you in hopes we can spend an afternoon soon making it together!
Although I made several different variations using whatever ingredients were available at the food co-op (Wheatsville in Austin, TX), this is the basic recipe. You can switch up the nuts, dried fruit, sweetener (we got an amazing tin of maple syrup once!) And I’ve used molasses as there was nothing else – a bit strong for my liking!
My favorite co-op was on Pearl street. It had the best front porch.
One Christmas I bought a real tree, set it up in the sitting room and we found all sorts of things to decorate it with including a string of those old fashioned lights. On Christmas Eve we made big batches of granola, popcorn and my Aunt Marty's ice box cookies. Then we "retired" to the living room where we turned on the tree lights and took turns playing songs on the old red piano we had had literally rolled home from an abandoned bar a few years past. I remember sitting on the floor and watching the lights and ornaments on that small tree as we shared memories of Christmas' past and dreams of Christmas' to come.
You know, I think it was the only real tree I ever had that didn’t require me to wrap a wire around the top and nail it to the wall to keep it from falling over! But that is another story!
Merry Christmas!
- 2 cups steel cut oats
- 1/4 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/2 cup slivered almonds (we would use pecans when in season – we’d sit around the huge dining table as we cracked pecans and just visit)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup light olive oil (or you can use vegetable oil – we had olive oil in these huge cans!)
- 1/2 cup dried fruit(Dried cranberries are my favorite)
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, combine oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and almonds. In a glass measuring cup, warm honey in microwave for about 30 seconds. (This is a new step since I moved to Minnesota and my cupboards stay cold as they are on ‘outside’ walls! If your honey is at room temperature, just pour – at the co-op it was rarely cold. But if the honey wouldn’t pour, I’d boil water, put it in a huge bowl on top and let it warm up some!).
Add olive oil to the honey and stir.
Drizzle the honey-oil over the dry ingredients and mix to combine. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet that has parchment paper on it or you can use a lightly oiled pan (what I used in the ‘olden’ days) or spray with Pam baking spray (oil only).
Bake granola until golden and crunchy, stirring once. Could take 15-25 minutes. Just watch it so it doesn’t burn!
Pour onto a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper to cool. Stir in the dried fruit. When cool, store in a sealed container. Sometimes it clumps together – just break apart.
Enjoy on homemade yogurt, for breakfast or as a snack on a run!
