Homemade Granola Recipe

Eating healthy has become a priority in our household.  A lot of people may think that eating healthy is expensive but we've found a bunch of ways to keep the costs down.  For one, we order some of our ingredients (Chia Seeds) online where they are FAR cheaper than they are at Whole Foods.  We also buy our most used items at Costco where we can get bulk sizes - Quinoa, honey, oats, eggs.  Another way for us to save on eating healthy is to make some of the food that we could purchase at the store.  We do this with pizza dough, cookies (not healthy, but you need a vice), granola and smoothies to name a few.

We eat a lot of granola.  I never thought I'd be one of those "granola eating healthy people" but here I am writing a post about making your own at home.  It's so simple and you can make a huge portion at once to save for a few weeks.  We eat granola almost everyday with Greek Yogurt and fruit which is pretty much a staple around here.  At any given time there is at least a tub or three of Greek Yogurt in our fridge.

A co-worker of mine said she makes her own granola using a recipe on Allrecipes.com and sent me the link.  I stared with the same recipe and I've since added a few things and changed a few of the amounts.  If you follow the recipe just as it it, it's delicious.  I don't want to take anything away from the original recipe, I just have a few other things on hand and added them in.  

The following recipe will make enough granola for our house for about 3 weeks.  I mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and the wet ingredients in a small bowl then mix the two together.  

4 cups old fashioned oats

1 cup each: sliced almonds, chopped walnuts, chopped pecans

1/2 cup of salted sunflower seeds

5 tbs of Chia Seeds

1/3 cup oil

1/2 or little more of honey (sometimes I do half honey and half maple syrup)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

palm full of ground cinnamon

Once it's all mixed together I spread it out on two large cookie sheets and bake at 300 degrees for 21 minutes, stirring every 7 minutes.  Sometimes I go a little bit longer, you'll be able to tell how crunchy the granola is at the end.  

With the bulk items that we bought at Costco we have enough ingredients to make granola for a year.  I'm dying to try this on some frozen yogurt or ice cream, but we haven't had any of that in the house in a long time.  And I'll be honest, there are plenty of days when I grab a handful of granola on my way past the pantry  because it's so good.  I wish you could smell how great the house smells after the granola is baked.  

Overnight Oats

Yesterday I wrote about Chia Seed and looking for ways to incorporate those into our diet.  One of the first places that I saw Chia Seed mentioned was on the blog Peanut Butter Fingers when she wrote about her Overnight Oats.  We have a giant bag of oats at our house and we go through $4 boxes of the healthy cereal faster than we can bring it in the house so giving the Overnight Oats a shot seemed like a good idea.

The recipe from PBF has the following ingredients:

• Old fashioned oats (2/3 cup)
• Milk (1/2 cup of milk)
• Chia seeds (2 tablespoons)
• Greek yogurt (6oz - about 3/4 cup - I eyeballed it)

I had all of that on hand at the house, and we were off!  Before we went to bed I mixed all the ingredients together and covered and put in the fridge for the night.  This morning, like PBF suggested, I added a splash of milk to the bowl to loosen it up a bit and to give it more of the oatmeal consistency that I like.  Stephen ate his cold and I warmed mine up for about a minute.  It wasn't hot, but not cold either - it was just right.  Our bowls were topped off with some fresh strawberries and breakfast was served.  

What another great breakfast!  The bowl was about 3 or 4 spoonfuls too much for me so I may cut it down a bit next time we make it.  I put it back in the fridge and I'll heat it up when I go home at lunch to let the dogs out.  

There are a bunch of Overnight Oats recipes out there so I'll play around with some and try adding new ingredients, but now I know I like it and it makes me happy.  

Chia Seeds

Has anyone else been hearing about Chia Seeds non-stop?  Maybe it's just the blogs I read or looking for super healthy recipes before the wedding, but I keep running into Chia Seeds with testimonials on how great they are for you.  So, being one to give new things a shot, I hunted some down at Whole Foods over the weekend.   The bag below was $15 at Whole Foods - ouch.  I've done some research and they're available online at a much lower cost.  If I buy into the health benefits of Chia Seeds we'll be purchasing that way from now on.

I first heard about Chia Seeds when I started doing research on Overnight Oatmeal.  Our mornings are super crazy now with a puppy who needs to constantly be watched which is cutting into my calm, relaxed mornings spent watching 10 min of the Today Show while eating a bowl of cereal.  No joke, I ended up wearing a bowl of Raisin Bran one morning after Goose decided to get my attention by jumping at me.  Check out this recipe for Overnight Oatmeal from one of the blogs I read regularly.  I'll try to remember to make some of those tonight and report back tomorrow.

Chia Seeds apparently have a TON of benefits.  They are extremely nutritious with a ton of protein, healthy fats like Omega 3 and fiber.  They expand when they soak up liquid around them, filling your stomach and keeping you full longer.  They also help diabetics and those suffering from acid reflux or even poor digestion.  See, wonder food!  They are gluten free and easy to digest.  The list could go on, do some Internet research.  Note: the bag is small, but a daily serving size is between a teaspoon and tablespoon, so it should last us a week or two.

In the Overnight Oats recipe the blogger mentions adding Chia Seeds to help the consistency of  the oats in the morning.  As I said, I plan to use them in the oats when I get around to cooking with them, but I also plan on adding them to the homemade granola that I make to add to my Greek Yogurt and I found a few other recipes.  Last night Stephen added the seed to his protein shake after working out.

This morning I made us a quick breakfast with the seed.  I also saw this recipe on the blog Peanut Butter Fingers.  For a quick breakfast full of protein and the chia seed, spread peanut butter on a whole wheat tortilla and top with a teaspoon of chia seeds.

I'm not a super fan of peanut butter and I think I went a little overboard this morning.  I'll cut back next time.  The next and final step is to wrap a banana in the tortilla and eat.  It is now lunch time and I'm still full from breakfast.  That rarely happens and it was a delicious breakfast!  I can't wait to do it again, but definitely with less peanut butter.  Stephen didn't have any complaints about his breakfast, he loved it.  

Any feedback on adding Chia Seeds to your diet?  I'm looking forward to seeing if I notice any health benefits of my teaspoon a day.