Peace, Love, Granola

Granola is the CC's favorite breakfast cereal. The CC doesn't eat breakfast very much but even so over the years he's bought tons of this stuff from various places. He finally decided to make his own.

The concept is really simple. It's just basically toasted oats. The rest is all putting a bow on top - nuts, dried fruits, sugar, fats, salt. You are making a pre-made ready-to-eat nutritionally complex mixture.

It's already cooked so when you either eat it with yogurt or milk, it hardly matters. You could eat it straight up but it would be too dry.

The recipe is from a famous three-Michelin star restaurant in New York. They apparently hand this out when you leave for your breakfast the next day. (The CC doesn't know. He hasn't been.)

It looked terrific and the CC had all the ingredients in-house. It definitely tastes terrific.

(Source: Eleven Madison Park.)

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup pistachios
1 cup coconut chips
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 tbsp kosher salt

1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup olive oil

3/4 cup sour dried cherries

Note 1: The three groups in the ingredients are deliberate in the recipe.

Note 2: You can substitute the sour dried cherries for a mixture of raisins, dried cherries, and barberries.

Note 3: This is deliberately not too sweet. You can always add more honey when you are eating it.

Note 4: There are two kinds of "kosher" salts. Ones that have been pressed and hence are more salty and others that are not. You want the natural kind here otherwise you will have a salty mess.

Note 5: You can totally gild the lily in the last step by adding roasted sesame seeds and slivered almonds .The CC did.

Recipe

Combine the first group - oats, pistachios, coconut chips and pumpkin seeds - in a bowl.

Mix the brown sugar, maple syrup and olive oil in a pan. Heat till dissolved. (You can also do this in a microwave on low heat for about 90 seconds.)

Pour this mixture all over the mixture in the bowl. Combine thoroughly.

Spread it on a pan and bake in the oven at 300°F for about 30-40 minutes. You will need to keep mixing and spreading the mixture every 6-7 minutes. (Yeah, a bit of a pain but otherwise it'll burn.)

Add the sour dried cherries and combine again. Let it cool to room temperature.

Store in a sealed container in a cool dry place.