Sunday, November 24, 2013

Granola from scratch

Today was the Turkey Trot, a local race, in fact, the oldest annual race in the city. My older boys have participated in either the 10 or the 2 mile race over the years. Today though, I was more than a spectator, more than someone to hold warm-up pants for a runner...today I was a runner! 

Yes, a slow runner, but I'm OFF the couch and I feel great! 


Rose and I all bundled up! Seriously...5 layers at least!

After the race, and after we all thawed out (it was about 25F this morning!), I finally got around to making some granola to go with the gallon of yogurt I made a few days ago. Along with yogurt, granola is one of those things that is so cheap to make compared to what you might pay at the store...especially when you have hungry teenagers!

I mixed 9 cups of oats, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 3 tsp cinnamon, and 1 tsp salt in a bowl. I mixed 1 cup of honey with 1/2 cup of melted coconut oil and 2 tsp vanilla. This mixture gets poured over the oats and thoroughly mixed. 


I wanted to be a little creative today so I put a few drops of DoTerra OnGuard essential oil blend into my honey/oil mix. It just smells like Christmas to me! Containing wild orange, clove, cinnamon, eucalyptus and rosemary, it smells amazing.

I spread the granola out on three baking sheets and toasted them for 15 minutes at 300 degrees. As the granola was toasting and the house filled with the wonderful aroma, I started wondering about fragrances. A lot of perfumes and scented candles give me headaches and me feel ill, but all of the essential oils I've tried do not. I have read about health risks of synthetic fragrances. I love my essential oils more and more all the time.

After the granola came out of the oven, I stirred in some almonds and put it back in the oven for 5 more minutes. Before it even cooled, I had kids hanging around the kitchen grabbing pieces of granola! Yum! I like making things from scratch. I love knowing exactly what is IN the things my kids eat.

3 comments:

DandG said...

MMMM.... that sounds so good!

Jill said...

Way to go!!! Great job to both of you! Great idea to put the on-guard in there. I would have never thought of that. We are loving our doTerra oils and the peppermint has been a life-saver for me this trip with travel-tummy issues.

Thanks for sharing!

Karien Prinlsoo said...

Thank you very much for this recipe. I just made this with gluten free oats. I live in South Africa, so sometimes i don't find all the ingredients that the say on an American recipe, but this was easy, except for the terra oils. The smile is still divine: even Kallen, who is our 7 year old son with ds, came into the kitchen and said it smell nice....he won't eat it though.