Granola Goodness

Posted on February 4, 2008 by Momzoo

Here is my recipe for granola. This is a wonderful breakfast or snack. This can be made out of food storage items. If you are unable to get butter you can use shortening, which can be easily stored. Butter can be bought in bulk when on sale and stored in a freezer. I serve this as a breakfast cereal, to make the whole batch (aprox. 12 cups) for about $3.50 depending on the price of butter, and if you use shortening the cost goes down even more. This is a lot cheaper than comercial cereals, and while there is a lot of sugar in this recipe there are no preservatives or dyes. You can also make it organic depending on the ingredients used, however that will make the cost go up. I like this on top of ice cream, or with plain yogurt. I put it in PIC’s lunch often with yogurt.

Here are our ingredients

1 1/2 cup butter

4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup water

3/4 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

12 cups oatmeal (old fashioned, DO NOT use quick oat)

First you melt the butter over medium heat in a big pot.

Once the butter is all melted add the brown sugar,

and water

When the sugar melts and the water mixes in add the salt,

add cinnamon (I put way more than 2 tsp, I really like the flavor of a lot of cinnamon)

and the nutmeg

Let is simmer, stirring constantly so it won’t burn, until the spices and sugar are all mixed and melted. (this is where husbands and kids start wandering into the kitchen wanting to know what smells so good)

Then you add the oats

and stir it until all the oats are coated, like you do with rice crispy treats

Pour it all into a greased baking pan or cookies sheet with sides

Put it into a 400 degree oven and set the timer for 10 minutes

Every ten minutes open the oven, see how it is getting brown?

stir the granola so it will toast evenly

Once it looks like this, you know you are done, it takes between 30 to 40 minuets. You want it to be a even golden brown.

When it is done you take it out of the oven, it will take a few hours to cool all the way. While it is cooling you will need to stir it to keep it sticking too much to the pan. You could also pour it out onto some wax paper to cool. Once it has cooled, I usually let it cool over night, you can store it in plastic zip-locks or a tupperware canister. It will keep a couple of weeks, but it is usually eaten way before that.

Once it has cooled you can add fun things. Rasins, nuts, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips. You can also experiment with the ingredients a little, try diffrent amounts of spices, or diffrent spices. Experiment with the amount of sugar you add, or use honey instead of brown sugar. Once you get the basics down you can taylor this recipe to the tastes of your family.

Enjoy!

Food Storage and Cooking

Posted on February 1, 2008 by Momzoo

I have been thinking a lot lately about food, food storage, and getting back to simple living. I think these days we are way too hurried. I long for simpler times and simpler things. I dream about the days when it was not just good, but admired and praised when a woman took care of her family. When there was pride in a home well kept, food well prepared and children well brought up.

Sometimes it takes a while for me to wrap my brain around things. We have been commanded to get out of debt, store food, and prepare for times of disaster (whether they are personal disasters or major regional disasters). For all of my 10 years of marriage we have done none of those things. We have talked about them, said we needed to do them, but never have. I for one become very overwhelmed at the idea of storing a years worth of food for 7 people. That is a lot of food. Also, I would wonder what in the world am I going to do with 100 pounds of wheat? 200 pounds of beans? I didn’t even think my family would eat beans…! So I would buy little extras here and there, but nothing substantial. 30 boxes of Macaroni and Cheese are good, but not very healthy if that is all you have to eat.

Then our Stake President broke it up a little bit more for me. He set a goal for the stake. He wanted us all to have 2 weeks of living expenses saved and three months of food. I can do that. I thought to myself “how easy would it be to store three months worth of breakfast?” I started to look around. I started to ask friends questions. A good friend of my directed me to a web site that is all about simple living and cooking. There are a ton of recipes that are simple and the ingredients can be stored easily. I stared to buy extra oatmeal. I stared to make homemade granola, it is cheaper than commercial cereal and there are no preservatives, or dyes or chemical additives and I can modify the recipe to what my family likes. I looked into buying pancake mixes and soon discovered that not only do they no keep very long, it is also much cheaper to just make it from scratch, and it really only takes about 5 minutes longer than adding water to a mix. In no time and very little money later I have my three months supply, and even better, I was using it, and rotating it! My kids liked the homemade pancakes and I learned how to modify the recipes to make them lower in fat, higher in fiber and to suit the tastes of my family.

The whole getting up and cooking my children a hot breakfast instead of them fending for themselves with cold sugary cereal gave rise to a new family routine that I have come to love. My husband was going through a really bad spot in life. He was an angry man, unhappy with his work; people that he thought were good friends were turning out to be terrible people who only used him. There was very little I could do to help him. He worked long, long hours and most weekends with very little time off. I tired to be supportive, but it was wearing on me and the kids. Our home was not a happy place. I was talking to a neighbor about all this, she had had a similar experience with her husband and I needed some insight. She mentioned that she got up every morning with her husband and they ate breakfast together, and that it had seemed to help a little. So I decided that I was going to do that. We were going to have breakfast together as a family. Now, I am not a morning person, this was going to be a huge sacrifice. However I was committed. So we did just that, I wake up when he does and while he is showering, I get the kids up and the school girls dressed, make breakfast and pack him a lunch (something I never have really ever done). He reads scriptures out loud for a minute and we all start the day, together, as a family. Now I don’t know if that really changed anything for him, there were some other things we did, and some changes that were made that I will talk about another time, but it sure brought our family closer. I really think that by me obeying, and learning to cook better for my family brought more blessings to us than just having the food for a time of need. If I hadn’t already been thinking along those lines and already working towards feeding my family a good breakfast would I have been open to the idea of getting up an hour earlier to prepare breakfast? I honestly don’t think I would have.

Anyway, I am going to start bloging about my journey into food storage, using it, and getting back to basic whole foods. All the while trying to do it frugally. I hope you don’t mind trying and testing recipes with me and if it really bores you, just ignore my ramblings on the subject!!!!