Monday, January 19, 2015

Clever Leftovers: Granola edition

This isn't so much a leftover recipe as an "I have too much of this and I need to use it up" recipe. See, my mom found Chex gluten free oatmeal on super sale (we're talking 79 cents a box), so she bought 10 of them. Ten boxes of instant oatmeal. Now, I like oatmeal, but I don't eat it every day. Or even once a week. It doesn't really keep me full. I know, weird.

Yesterday I organized my pantry and I was reminded that precious real estate was being taken up by these 10 boxes of oatmeal. So I made a quick apple crisp, and that used up... 1 packet. Quite a ways to go.

Enter: Granola!

Now, I like a nice granola. Sprinkled on yogurt, eaten as a cereal, even as a topping for oatmeal. (oats on oats on oats!) Granola gets eaten quick. A big batch can be gone in no time, which makes it perfect for using up these oatmeal packets.

I've made granola before, and I feel like I've simplified the process pretty well. What I've got is not so much of a recipe as a guideline... as most of these "leftover" recipes go... and you only use 1 bowl, and 1 cookie sheet and 1 spoon.

Chex GF Oatmeal- Granola!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In this particular batch, I dumped into a bowl:
instant oatmeal
slivered almonds
coconut
chia seeds

At this point you will have a bowl full of granola ingredients. The next step is to drizzle in some olive oil or melted coconut oil. Use enough to moisten all of the ingredients.

After the oil is mixed in, taste-test. With pre-sweetened instant oatmeal, I don't have to add any sweeteners. A big dash of cinnamon and a large pinch of salt get mixed in to give it a little oomph.

The mixture gets dumped onto a foil-lined cookie sheet and spread out. Sometimes I drizzle a little bit of honey over the mixture to encourage cluster formation. Then it goes into the oven for 20 minutes- stirring once after 10 minutes.

Note: Keep an eye on it. It can go from toasty to burny very quickly, especially if your oven is old and the temperature likes to fluctuate randomly like mine.

After it cools on the counter it will get crunchy, and then it's GRANOLA TIME.

No comments: