Gluten-free Cinnamon Raisin Granola

Mmmmm, granola...

 

 

Ok, so I'm totally cheating and posting the cinnamon raisin granola recipe I found at The Spunky Coconut blog. ( http://balancedplatter.com/cinnamon-raisin-granola-grain-free-sugar-free/ ) It's grain-free and sugar-free, AND dairy-free! Can you believe it? Oh, and it's AH-mazing!

 

Since we figured out that Nadia was having trouble with gluten we've had a challenge finding breakfast cereal options that work well. We don't eat cereal all that often, but when we do the kids almost ALWAYS want whatever Ricky is having. The challenge was to find something that everyone likes and that doesn't cost $8 for a 10oz package. I thought I'd try out a granola recipe or two and see what happened. The first couple of recipes we tried were ok, but they weren't great. This one has been my favorite by far and is very filling. Some days, Ricky isn't even famished by lunch time. Yeah, you read that right. This stuff has some staying power.

 

Here's my take on it:



Soak 4 cups of nuts for about 8 hours. (I used 1c cashews and 2 1/2c almonds. I added more stuff later to make up the last cup.) This is in bold because I always forget this is part of the process and start way too late. 
Rinse and strain.


Add to a bowl with:
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup almond meal flour
1 cup applesauce with no added sugar
1/4 tsp of vanilla liquid stevia (I used NuNaturals.)
1/4 c pumpkin seeds
1/4c flax seeds


In a separate bowl mix:
1/4 cup Chia Seed meal (I used the coffee grinder like the original author recommended.)
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
Combine the two bowls.
Spread onto baking sheet or roasting pan.

The original post said to "dehydrate at 130 degrees overnight, or until it’s dry and crunchy", but I only have my totally unfancy oven. SO, (yes, this is tedious, but I usually forget there's something in the oven to begin with if there's no timer, so you can blame it on that--partially) what I did was turn the oven to 250, let it preheat, then turn it off and let the granola sit in there overnight. The next day I turned it to 350 with the granola still in the oven, let it preheat, then turned it off. There it sat, all day long. Then that night I turned the oven to 170, as low as mine goes, and left it for a couple hours, stirring pretty frequently to make sure it wasn't getting too crispy in one spot. As soon as it felt dry all over I took it out. (Well, Ricky did, but whatever.) I'm sure you could just put the oven at 170 and watch it really closely and stir frequently to make sure it doesn't overcook or prop the oven door open with a towel or something, but as I mentioned before, I forgot about the soaking part, so I got started a tad late and couldn't (wouldn't) stay up all night to watch granola bake. But anyway, now it's delicious. Nadia kept stealing pieces all the next morning until I got it put away. And Aidan's a big fan, too. And that picture up there is my bowl of yogurt--covered in granola! Yum!