Too Busy for Breakfast? Cherry Almond Granola Bars

There’s nothing better than a hearty bowl of oatmeal on a winter morning. But, sometimes our schedules just won’t allow it. That’s where these delicious chewy granola bars come in.

These filling bars are packed with hearty goodness, like buttery oats, almonds and dried fruit, and they don’t contain any of the preservatives found in store-bought varieties. And, while they're not cloyingly sweet like some granola bars, honey and a bit of brown sugar provides a nice balanced sweetness alongside unsweetened dried cherries.

We love this recipe since it's highly customizable. 

Love a little chocolate for breakfast?  Make peanut butter and dark chocolate chip granola bars with pecans.

Try peanut or cashew butter instead of almond butter. Sub out the flax seeds for sunflower seeds. Add raisins, dried pineapple, coconut... the sky is the limit. Just keep the proportion of dry to wet ingredients the same and you're all set.

Best of all, they come together quickly, so you can devote your time to other, more important tasks... like making your morning coffee. 

Cherry Almond Granola Bars

There are more great recipes where this one came from! We created this dish as part of our work with the Go Bold with Butter blog, where you'll find an amazing collection of delicious recipes using real butter.

©BURP!

Fight Back Fridays: Double Ginger Granola Repast

In celebration of Fight Back Fridays (a great event sponsored by Food Renegade), I wanted to repost one of my recent favorites: Double Ginger Granola.

Not only is this hippie food AWESOME for you, but it's a fine example of how making your own breakfast cereal can save you money and contribute to your good health!
Granola is awesome because you can customize the flavors to your own liking. Add as much fruit as you like. Like nuts? Add those. Wanna change it up a bit? Throw in some carob chips! Or cocoa nibs!

This particular granola is a celebration of all things ginger -- with a few cranberries and some cocoa nibs thrown in for good measure. Read the full post, which contains all sorts of fun facts, here: Granola. Real food for real people :)

I'm sneaking this post in at the last minute (past the deadline, really) because I believe in this event. It gets great people together for a great cause -- to spread the word about real food!

If you haven't already, I'd like to invite YOU to participate in Fight Back Fridays -- a celebration of real food. It’s your standard blog carnival, but it’s all about being Food Renegades. Who are the Food Renegades? Well, they’re the adventurous ones — the people who opt out of the industrialized food system, distrust standard nutritional advice, and embrace Real Food.
Read the Guidelines HERE.


©BURP! Where Food Happens

Hippie Food: Double Ginger Granola with Cranberries & Cocoa Nibs

It's true. I'm probably a hippie chick at heart.
You probably wouldn't be able to tell from my appearance. After all, these days I have a professional wardrobe. However, in the days of yore, my closet contained a very nice collection of peasant skirts, which I wore with t-shirts (in those days, I worked selling books at an independent bookstore). I'm also a bit of an activist by nature. I believe that most great movements begin as grassroots endeavors, and I firmly believe in the power of people to incite real change in the world. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. And I take the opportunity, whenever I can, to vote with my $$$ by supporting local farmers and local businesses.

There are other signs.
I'd rather have a string of beads than a set of diamond studs any day.
I secretly long for a tie-dyed VW bug.
I heart me a nice pair of Birkenstocks.

And, I love me some delicious, crunchy granola.
My mother used to make granola when I was a kid. She had the concept right, for the most part, but she tended to bake the raisins right along with the oatmeal, nuts, and honey... so they always had this sort of burnt taste. It wasn't until I grew up and went out on my own that I realized the raisins in granola weren't supposed to be crunchy.
Turns out, my mother wasn't alone, granola actually took a seriously long time to catch on, even among the health food crowd. I'm not sure we can chalk that up to a history of burnt raisins; but, some of the initial concepts for this crunchy snack were pretty unappealing.

Legend has it that we can credit the beginnings of granola to Dr. Graham, health enthusiast and inventor of graham flour/graham crackers. Dr. Graham preached that people should shun meat, alcohol, tobacco, stimulants (coffee, tea) and white bread. He didn't make or advocate granola... but he did inspire the production of GRANULA, sheets of graham crackers baked, rebaked, and broken up into little pieces. *YUM* Apparently, after the delicious granula concept failed to take off, Dr. Kellogg and Dr. Post subsequently invent their own variations in the late 1800's --the former resulting in the granola name, and the latter giving birth to modern-day Grape Nuts cereal.

When the term "granola" was revived by the modern health food movement in the 1960's, it became the lovely hippie food we know today.

As for me, I've been making granola for a number of years. Usually, I've gone with a pretty standard recipe -- oatmeal, some sort of nuts, cinnamon, sweetener (usually maple syrup or honey; sometimes brown sugar); and dried fruit. This recipe follows the mold, only I experimented a bit with the flavorings. This variety uses a bit of fresh ginger, some vanilla powder, and just a touch of cinnamon. It also benefits from some chopped up crystallized ginger -- which adds a bit of zing -- and dried cranberries, which keep the granola from getting too sweet. Cocoa nibs add a bit of chocolatey interest -- and a nutty crunch.
We usually eat our granola for breakfast with a bit of vanilla kefir poured over the top. It's the best cold cereal I've ever had (maybe next to Grape Nuts :)), and it sticks to my ribs just enough that I'm not ravenous before noon.
Granola keeps well. You can store double ginger granola for up to a month in an airtight container at room temperature. It keeps for 6 months in the freezer.

In addition to breakfast food, granola is also nice sprinkled over fruit, yogurt, or icecream. This lovely gingery delicacy is especially nice as a topping for baked peaches.

Double Ginger Granola with Cranberries & Cocoa Nibs



©BURP! Where Food Happens