Monday, January 31, 2011

Ask-Receive

Granola recipe:

5 cups of oats (I use thick cut)
1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds, whatever you have)
1/4 cup sesame seeds (not toasted)
1/4 cup sunflower seeds (I didn't have any at home so I left this out and doubled the sesame seeds)
3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

1/2 cup apple juice or apple cider
1/2 cup honey

1 cup dried fruit (whatever you like-I used 1/2 dried cranberries, 1/2 raisins)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix together the first group of ingredients in a big bowl, heat juice/honey in the microwave until the honey dissolves. Add to bowl and mix REALLY well. Pour onto a big cookie sheet and bake for about 20 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes or so and watch it carefully towards the end-it will go from toasty and awesome to burt and smelling like butt in a second.

Dump back into bowl and add dried fruit. Put mixture in an airtight container and let it cool. Some of the mixture will clump together, if you don't want clusters occasionally roll the container as it cools.

Yogurt recipe:

I suggest starting this in the afternoon the day before so you will have yogurt in the morning! Pour 1/2 gallon of milk (whatever you normally drink or have at home-I used 2%) into a crockpot and heat on warm for 2 1/2 hours. Stir at this time to make sure it doesn't stick and turn off crockpot, make sure the lid is on during this time. Let it hang out for 3 hours. After 3 hours take out about 1 cup and mix in 1/2 cup of plain yogurt from the store. Add this back to the mixture and stir it REALY well to completely combine. Put the lid back on top and cover your entire crockpot with several heavy towels. Do not move the crockpot AT ALL and let it do it's thing for 8-10 hours. The longer it sits the tangier it will be, it is up to your taste buds at this point. When you uncover your container and look inside you will have yogurt! If you want it thicker then put it in the fridge to completely cool before adding scoops to a coffee filter in a sieve. Let the whey drain until you get the consistency you like (I drained mine for about 1 hour to make it between regular store yogurt and greek-style). It's a little time consuming, but honestly it's not really any work-you ignore it for 2 1/2 hours, ignore it again for 3 hours, and ignore it AGAIN for 8-10 hours.

Enjoy!

3 comments:

crystal said...

Yum, thanks! :)

Madabip said...

Do you keep the low heat on the entire time or just for the very first part?

The Surprise Dyke said...

Madabip-just the first part, then you turn it off and just leave it to do its thing :-)