Something Healthy for a Change

When I first moved away from home, it took me a while to figure out this whole budgeting thing. You know, spend all your money now, you won’t have money later. Even for basics like food. I learnt my lesson though when I completely ran out of cash. I walked to and from the restaurant I worked at (which fortunately fed me dinner) I  stopped hanging out with friends for a couple weeks and I started living off of anything left in my kitchen. I had however made oatmeal cookies the week before so what I had was butter and oats. So all I ate was granola. I ate an alarming amount of it and I did it for weeks. And when I got the pay check that gave me the freedom to buy new food I decided that I still loved granola and simply bought some nuts and dried fruit to add to the mix. I love granola and I now keep a big container or it on hand at all times. I switch up the nuts and fruit, sometimes I add dried cherries, sometimes I put in pecans, but for the most part it stays the same. I’ve switched from butter to oil; I like the texture of it better but feel free to substitute. I also use sweetened coconut in mine because that’s generally the kind of coconut I have kicking around. However, if you wanted to use unsweetened, add another 1/3 cup of sugar.

 

Granola

4 cups Rolled Oats

2 cups roughly chopped almonds

1 cup sweetened coconut

½ cup canola oil

½ cup honey

1 cup dried apricots roughly chopped

1tbsp chopped candied ginger

·         Preheat oven to 300F

·         Mix everything except apricots and ginger

·         Put mix onto a parchment lined tray and bake for 30-40 minutes stirring every 10 minutes or so until it gets golden and cluster-y and the nuts are nicely toasted

·         Cool down

·         Add in dried fruit and ginger and enjoy!