alexandra_thorn

When I needed to drop wheat from my diet as part of the low-FODMAP diet, it was a strong motivator to figure out how to make my own granola.

The goal was to have something that provided more than just starch, was tasty, made with relatively unprocessed ingredients, and was not *too* high in sugar. I don't have an electric mixer, so I do all mixing by hand. With some trial and error, this is the recipe that I've come up with, adapted from the granola recipe in _How to Cook Everything Vegetarian_ by Mark Bittman.

The below is a double recipe relative to Bittman's recipe. I go through single recipes too quickly!

Ingredients:
* 2 lb rolled oats
* 4 cups nuts and seeds (I use two heaping cups of pecans, which I chop up, one cup of sesame seeds, and one cup of pumpkin seed pepitas)
* 2 cups fresh ground almond butter
* 1 cup pure maple syrup (you can substitute a simple syrup if price is an issue)
* 2 cups sweetened dried cranberries (make sure that the sweetener is low-FODMAP, e.g. sugar or pineapple juice)
* 34 g (~1/4 cup) unsweetened chocolate (I use Pascha brand 100% chocolate chips, but you can also chop up your favorite baking chocolate)
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Supplies:
* Two large mixing bowls (life is easiest if one is at least 2-gallons; I suppose you could make do with one 4-gallon mixing bowl)
* One small (1 quart or larger) mixing bowl
* Two 12x16 cookie sheets (you want the kind with a lip so the granola doesn't go anywhere) or equivalent area in baking pans
* Nice big spoon for stirring with

Steps:
1) Combine all nuts in one bowl, including any chopping you need to do, and set aside.
2) In small bowl, combine almond butter, maple syrup, salt, and cinnamon. Stir to a uniform consistency.
3) Put rolled oats into one cookie sheet on stove top across two burners on low, low heat.
4) Heat oats for 4 minutes while stirring to keep the oats above the burners from burning.
5) Add nuts to oats, and heat for another 4 minutes while stirring.
6) Turn on oven to pre-heat to 300F
7) Transfer oat-nut mixture into the 2-gallon mixing bowl, and pour on almond-butter syrup mixture. Stir until uniform. Beware of pockets of dry oats that sometimes hide in the center of the bottom of the bowl. This is a fair amount of stirring. It will look like granola by the time you are done mixing.
8) Spread out the granola mixture on the two cookie sheets and bake for 20 minutes.
9) While the granola is baking, prepare the two mixing bowls by adding half of the cranberries and half of the chocolate to the bottom of each.
10) Immediately after the the granola is finished baking, scoop the granola from each cookie sheet into one of the prepared bowls, and mix until uniform. The heat of the cooked granola will melt the chocolate so that it mixes into the granola.


Notes:
* Using nice large containers really reduces headaches, because there is a lot of stirring involved and granola has a tendency to go flying.
* The original recipe, which is *not* designed for a low-FODMAP diet, also calls for 2 cups of shredded coconut, added during the stovetop step, two minutes after the nuts. I think coconut granola tastes great but it is also a source of FODMAPS (see https://www.fodmapeveryday.com/is-coconut-low-fodmap/). Don't add it unless you are sure it is consistent with your diet.
* The recipe is pretty forgiving. Most ingredients can easily be dropped, and it works just as well with different dried fruits (chop the larger ones; and note that many fruits are high-FODMAP) or different seeds and nuts. However, in my experience it doesn't stick together properly with less than 1 cup of syrup. If you're trying for something lower sugar than this, you'll need to make additional modifications.

A few days ago I put package of Taza brand Mexicano chocolate in the double boiler, and after it started to melt, I added a bit of water. I stirred while the chocolate finished melting, and then added another couple of cups of water.

When the water had heated up again, I made sure things were well mixed, then turned off the heat.

I poured part of the result over a couple of glasses I'd previously filled with ice cubes.

The rest I carefully poured into the now-empty ice cube tray, which I stuck back into the freezer.

The result is *awesome*, although the cubes didn't come out of the tray as easily as pure water cubes, so I had to use a knife to pry them out.

I find that chocolate ice cubes are particularly good in orange juice, though the way the weather's been that can be a lot of sugar so it helps if I add water ice cubes too.