• Humble ingredients make a delicious, nutritious, cheap and eco-friendly breakfast

    Posted on March 6th, 2010 Saver Queen 9 comments

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    I just love finding new DIY tricks to circumvent the need to buy overly processed, overly packaged foods, and this homemade granola is a perfect example.  Although I’ve rolled my eyes a few times at Amy Dacyczyn’s “recipes” I love her homemade granola.  As always, there are many different variations to making granola - see, for example, Chatelaine or Martha Stewart or Alton Brown. My conclusion from looking at all these recipes, as well as Dacyzyn’s own, is that any granola recipe includes three steps:

    1. Combine dry ingredients - rolled oats, a little salt, some cinnamon and nutmeg if you like, as well as your nuts and seeds.  I added ground flax seed, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and a walnut pieces.

    2. Gently melt your liquids and sugars. For my recipe, it included 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of honey, and 1/4 cup of canola oil, but there are many other variations that omit the oil and include maple syrup, so check out the recipes posted above.

    3. Bake in an oven (again, temperatures and times seem to vary a little, but just make sure your oats get toasted evenly until they are slightly crunchy.  I baked mine at 350 for about 15-20 minutes, stirring often.

    4. Add your raisins or other fruits.  I had some cranberries in the freezer, so I used the residual oven heat to bake them.  The cranberries made an amazing contribution to the granola.

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    The great thing about the homemade granola is that it tastes delicious, and it’s also extremely healthy.  When combined with milk, you’re getting calcium, protein, and fibre as well as other benefits depending on what kind of fruit you add (and the variations are really endless.)  After eating a bowl of store-bought cereal I am usually hungry within an hour, at best.  After eating a bowl of this granola, I can actually get through until lunch time without needing a snack. It’s great!

    But the benefits don’t stop there - this cereal is very eco-friendly.  You eliminate the waste that comes with buying boxed cereal, and if you buy your nuts, fruits and oats in bulk (and why wouldn’t you) and use re-usable bags at the bulk food store, then the cereal becomes even more environmentally friendly.

    I store my granola (and other items, as you can see) in glass mason jars.  I realized a while ago that I was crazy for buying tupperware, which is expensive and wears out overtime, when I could buy glass mason jars, which will last forever, at the thrift store for 29¢ a piece.  Use a funnel, and glass jars are just as easy to use as tupperware.

    If you want to reduce your cost and save even more packaging, use homemade brown sugar.  I stopped buying packaged brown sugar, and I am loving the switch.  Just combine a little molasses (I use about 1/2tbsp, but you can increase this amount if you want it sweeter or darker) to one cup of sugar.  Molasses is very healthy - it’s a great source of calcium, for example, and you will find that your sugar actually tastes a lot better. It’s cheap and far better than buying those plastic bags of brown sugar in the grocery store.  Plus, it reduces waste because you just make it as you need it, so it won’t dry out.

    On the left you’ll see powdered milk.  I’m experimenting here.  Not just because powdered milk is a lot cheaper than liquid, but because I’m always looking for ways to reduce my waste.  My building does not recycle waxy boxboard, so milk cartons go in the trash.  My alternative is to buy it in bags, which also end up in the trash.  The days of plastic milk jugs seem to be long gone.  Dacyzyn recommends mixing powdered milk with a regular milk so that you can adapt to the taste, so I might experiment with that.  I am not particularly fond of the taste and texture of powdered milk. (If anyone has a solution I’d love to hear it.)

    Please share your favourite breakfast strategies and recipes for homemade granola or other cereals!

    Recipes
     

    9 responses to “Humble ingredients make a delicious, nutritious, cheap and eco-friendly breakfast”

    1. Amber March 6th, 2010 at 19:39

      Milk is so regional! Here in BC we’ve never really had milk in bags. There was a brief period in the 80s, but it never caught on. So all of our milk comes in the waxy cardboard, or the plastic jugs. You can usually get 2L or 4L in plastic jugs. Locally you can also get 1L in glass bottles from one dairy, which are sterilized and re-used. That’s the ultimate no-waste solution, but with my kids I need to buy my milk in larger volumes, so I usually opt for plastic 4L jugs.

    2. Saver Queen March 7th, 2010 at 11:31

      I wish I could buy milk in glass bottles. It’s funny, the west coast is always ahead of the rest of canada when it comes to recycling. I just read that BC instituted its deposit-refund system in 1970 and it took 15 years before the rest of the country got similar programs.

    3. Tracey March 8th, 2010 at 13:14

      Hello SQ! I am so inspired to make granola! This would also be a great addition to a Breakfast themed Gift Basket as well! Just cut a round of brown craft paper to cover the lid and tie with raffia! Also love your homemade brown sugar tip!
      Warmly,
      Tracey

    4. R March 8th, 2010 at 20:42

      I am really enjoying your blog, which I just found today by myfrugalfreedom. Keep up the great work!

    5. Sarah March 8th, 2010 at 23:14

      Just curious as to how this “homemade brown sugar” stacks up nutritionally compared with authentic brown sugar. I always thought the darker the sugar, the less processing - although you do have to check the ingredients. Some brown sugars are actually highly refined white sugar with caramel colour and flavour added.

      For great tasting reconstituted milk I generally mix it quite a bit weaker than the package directions, then add a bit of cream (even 5% is okay) to give it a fresher, “real milk” taste. A little bit goes a long way.

    6. Catherine March 10th, 2010 at 14:58

      Everything sounds delicious SQ!
      Because of my strict diet, there are many things I cannot eat…..but, I CAN have dates. So I cook up dates and spread that on my spelt toast in the morning…with eyes closed….pretending it is a date square LOL.
      When our children were home I always had dry milk powder on hand as we live in the boonies and would often get stormed in during the winter. I would mix eg. 1 quart of milk powder and water (per instructions) and 1 quart of 2% milk thereby stretching our milk supply. Now I only have the powder on hand to make my homemade ‘Eagle Brand’ milk for recipes. Saves a pile of $$$$.

    7. Saver Queen March 10th, 2010 at 23:05

      Tracey - my thoughts precisely! Makes me think about mothers day gifts.

      R - thank you!

      Sarah - I’m not sure about authentic brown sugar, but as you say, the processed stuff often seems to contain a lot of additives and is not sweetened by molasses but by cane syrup or something. I tried making the milk weaker and this alone makes a huge difference. I’ll try adding a little cream, or as Catherine suggests, mixing it with 2% milk. However, I even find that just mixing it with extra water makes it a lot more palatable.

      Catherine - at least you can have dates! Dates are delicious, and so healthy!

    8. Cate March 17th, 2010 at 13:01

      What beautiful granola! Storing it in Mason jars is a great idea. Granola is one of my favorite breakfasts, and like you, I often find myself hungry right away after eating regular cereal. Granola always keeps me full a lot longer.

    9. Let the garage sales begin! @ Saver Queen April 17th, 2010 at 16:50

      [...] because even the lids are resuable and will last forever). Good for storing coffee beans or  homemade granola, which incidentally, I think would make a great Mother’s Day [...]

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