cranberry and chocolate granola

It's time for another in my IRNTMSTINECFTITMATIGTBLOTIWWAGSLTTTAGTDSOR series (I can't tell you how long that actually took to type out).

 

In other words, it's breakfast time!  

I don't remember breakfasts ever being a communal affair in my family. There must have been a time when an adult was in charge of making and supervising my breakfast but I don't really remember it. Once I started making my own way to school in the mornings, it would be my responsibility to make two cups of tea and a slice of toast for my mother and to take it up to her in bed just before I left. My own breakfast would generally consist of a muffin or whatever I could grab to eat in front of the early morning news.  

I really have no idea how people find the time to sit down and have a proper breakfast in the morning. Even at the weekends when I generally have more time, breakfast is normally gobbled down while sitting cross legged on the bed and checking twitter. At least if my breakfast consists of some plain yoghurt and a handful of oats and seeds, I feel at least a little bit healthy.

I always thought that 'when I was a grown up', I'd somehow magically become the type of person that sat down for breakfast every morning (I also thought that 'when I was a grown up', I would have learnt to keep my bedroom tidy but that's a whole other story). It's not happened yet though and I am pretty sure that it's not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

I made this granola from what I found hanging around in my cupboards. Some people don't like chocolate in the morning. I don't understand those people. I normally use some sort of fruit juice to make up the wet ingredients but realised I didn't have any (this really is the story of my life at the moment) but luckily Nigella had a recipe using apple sauce, a technique I decided to adopt here.  So long as you keep the ratios pretty much the same, you can use whatever you have on hand.  If it seems a bit dry, add a bit more liquid and vice versa.  It's pretty difficult to get it wrong.

~

Cranberry and chocolate granola

Yield: Makes enough for a 1.8l container

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 
• 125g apple sauce
• 100ml light agave nectar
• 1 tablespoon light brown sugar 
• Pinch of salt
• 250g rolled oats 
• 100g sunflower seeds
• 100g flaked almonds
• 100g dried cranberries (those sweetened with fruit juice are better, in my opinon, than the really sugary ones) 
• 100g dark chocolate chips

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 150C/300F and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. In a small pan, heat the oil, apple sauce agave nectar, sugar and salt and stir to combine.
3. Put the oats, almonds and seeds in a large bowl, add the liquid and mix until all your dry ingredients are coated.
4. Spread out over your baking tray and bake for 40-50 minutes until golden brown, stirring every 15 minutes or so. I like to add the cranberries and about 1/4 of the chocolate chips 5 minutes before the end so that some of the chocolate melts and helps to bind everything together.
5. Remove from the oven and cool before stirring in the remaining chocolate chips.
6. Store in an airtight container for a couple of weeks.