Homemade Granola

Homemade granola sounds hard or at least it did to me, until I tried it. I love it, its so easy to make, delicious and healthy. As a bonus this could very easily be made gluten free, if you buy certified gluten free products. My first attempt ended in a slightly burnt granola, but good never the less. Oh and the prunes I put in it where rock hard and had to be picked out. I don't have a fancy pan to make it in, just a plain old cake pan. Here is the original recipe I used http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/cherry-almond-and-cinnamon-granola-recipe/index.html I didn't have cherry's, so I used diced prunes, which are awesome. I was worried when buying what I needed that the almonds would be expensive. They are, but if you buy whole almonds and chop them yourself you save a couple of bucks. One bag of whole almonds made two batches of granola for me. I tried chopping them in my food processor and in my coffee grinder like I did the flax seed. Yeah I had huge chunks and almond flour at the same time. So out came the cutting board. I can't seem to not tweak recipes, so here is my version of granola. I hope you have better luck with your first batch than I did.

This is before adding oil and honey.

Flax Seed Granola
4 cups rolled oats
2 cups sweetened coconut flakes
2 cups chopped almonds (cheaper than sliced)
1 cup coarsely ground flax seeds
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/3 cup honey
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
Preheat oven to 350. Mix the first 4 ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the oil and honey together and pour on the dry ingredients, mixing well. It takes a fair amount of mixing. Sprinkle cinnamon and yeast on top. Mix well, again this takes a bit of stirring. Bake in cake pan or whatever pan works. When you baking stir it often, like every 5 minutes or so. I flatten it back out when I do so it cooks more evenly. Bake it until it is a nice golden brown. Let it cool stirring occasionally. I stored mine in mason jars and it lasted several weeks. Makes a great bowl of cereal and my boys liked it. Sorry I haven't perfected putting fruit in it yet, but you can always sprinkle it on top. Its also very good in yogurt, come to think of it I need to make more yogurt now that I have made more granola.

Just placed in the oven.

All done, kind of hard to tell the difference in the pictures, but its done I promise.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

This bread is awesome and super tastey. It never lasts too long at our house and makes excellent toast for breakfast. To make it you have to make the buttermilk bread dough below and refrigerate it.

Cinnamon Raisin Bread
1 1/2 pounds (cantaloupe sized piece) of Buttermilk bread dough
Butter or neutral tasting oil to grease pan
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup raisins
egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp of water)
Lightly grease pan and set aside. Dust the top of the refrigerated dough and cut off 1 1/2 pound piece. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly turn the sides under turning the ball as you go. Roll it out in a rectangle like appearance keeping it about 1/4" thick, using more flour as needed. Using a pastry brush spread on egg wash covering the entire surface. Mix cinnamon and sugar together and sprinkle on dough evenly as possible. Then sprinkle on raisins evenly. Starting at the short side roll it up jelly roll style. Pinch the edges and ends together and tuck the ends under. Place in pan and allow to rest 1 hour and 40 minutes. Then preheat the oven to 375, and bake 35 to 40 minutes until golden brown. Then remove it from the pan and allow to cool completely before cutting.