This is my low fat granola recipe, which I’ve used for years. I no longer remember the original source, but I’ve made enough changes to it that I can probably call it my own now.
As you can see, it takes a lot of ingredients. Some, like the steel cut oats, are ones I added, and are therefore expendable. My rule of thumb is to work with what I have; anything that’s missing or unwanted can be replaced with additional rolled oats.
I found that roasting the steel cut oats in the oven made them easier to eat, and doing so while preheating the oven seemed like a good frugal measure—I hate using energy to preheat the oven with no other benefit.
This makes a medium-sweet cereal. The fewer sweeteners you use, the better, I think. I’ve slowly cut down the amount of brown sugar, as it seems to have no added value, such as helping stick the grains together. The apple juice concentrate is probably the most expensive and hardest to come by, so that seems a good candidate for skimping as well. I have used orange juice concentrate instead. It’s not bad.
Mark’s Low Fat Granola
Ingredients:
8 c rolled oats
2 c bran (oat or wheat)
2 c steel cut oats
1 c sesame seeds
½ c sunflower seeds
½ c flax seeds
½ c brown sugar
2/3 c apple juice concentrate
2/3 c honey
1 c dry milk
1 T cinnamon
1 scant tsp salt
raisins to taste
Instructions:
Spread steel cut oats on cookie sheet and place in oven. Preheat oven to 375º, allowing steel cut oats to roast until you’re ready for them.
Mix juice, honey, sugar and dry milk in saucepan and heat until sugar dissolves. Add in cinnamon and salt. You can also add seeds and steel cut oats once this mixture is heated.
Combine any remaining dry ingredients. Pour wet mixture slowly into dry mix. Blend well.
Place on cookie sheet and bake at 375º for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. If you use 2 cookie sheets, rotate them in the oven stirring each to bake evenly.
Let cool. Note that mixture will continue to bake and dry a bit as the pans cool. Add raisins and store in airtight container.
You may have noticed that this cereal is packed with dietary fiber, as well as whole grains. It is, as Garrison Keillor says, tasty and expeditious!
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Mark Zeiger is a regular contributor to Self Reliance Works. He and his family homestead off the grid in Southeast Alaska. For a look at their day-to-day life, visit www.akzeigers.com and read their blog.
