Grain free Granola

One of my favourite snacks in the gluten full days were these little bags of cocoa granola with chunks of dried cherry pieces, these were honestly the best snacks and I was sad to give them up. I was suddenly  thinking about granola recently as my mum bought some buckwheat granola. Sadly I'm allergic to buckwheat, and had to give the granola a miss, but I then decided to create my own. This one however is completely grain free and so simple to make. The recipe given below can be altered to your liking; I've used almonds, walnuts, coconut flakes and sunflower, pumpkin and hemp seeds, but you could also use your choice of favourite nuts and seeds such as cashews, pecan, sesame seeds etc. I tried to use as little honey as possible, plus theres no oil as nuts and seeds are already full of good oils. You could also toss some chopped dried fruit at the end, if you like, but I found the granola sweet enough already. Serve this glorious granola with soy yoghurt, almond/soy milk (unsweetened because the honey sweetens the milk) and berries or chopped banana. In fact today for breakfast I tossed it with soy yoghurt that I thinned with almond milk for a lighter consistency, and chopped strawberries. You could even munch on this for a sweet but satisfying snack!

Grain free granola - Vegan, gluten, grain, soy, refined sugar free.

1 cup almonds

1 cup pecans   

(or 2 cups of your choice of nuts)

1/2 cup coconut flakes

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

1/3 cup sunflower seeds

2 tbsp sesame seeds     

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2 tbsp runny honey (or maple syrup/ agave nectar)

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

2. Place nuts into a blender/food processor and pulse until finely chopped. You want it to be coarsley ground but still have small pieces of nuts.

3. Place chopped nuts into a large bowl and stir in the coconut, seeds and spices. Stir in the honey and mix until nut/seed mixture is evenly coated in honey and sticking together a little.

4. Spread nut mixture in a thin even layer on a sheet of baking parchment on a baking tray and place in the oven. Bake for about 12 - 15 minutes, stirring once or twice until golden brown all over. Leave cool then transfer to airtight containers.

With love,

Teenie Foodie