You know I love me some sweets, and if I were stranded on an island and could have only one type of food, it would be breakfast treats. I love them all: muffins, scones, pancakes, french toast, pain au chocolat…I could go on forever listing these.
I’ve really been trying to cut back on the sugar, though largely unsuccessfully, and have been trying to at least modify my sugar intake in the mornings. I’ve long known the benefits of yogurt, but the sugary variety is the only breakfast sweet I’m not completely crazy about and plain yogurt doesn’t float my boat. It might be because yogurt isn’t part of the carb family.
Yesterday I remembered these granola bars I made a few years ago, and thought I might like them crumbled on top of yogurt. Good thing I was planning on crumbling them anyway because they didn’t stick together at all.
Bars or no, it’s fabulous. I added dried mangoes and coconut, and you can practically feel the caribbean breeze and hear the steel drums as you savor this. I love that this recipe is super flexible and if you add enough of the “sticky” stuff as Deb calls it, the granola will adhere to each other better than my batch. I reduced the honey and other sweeteners, which accounts for its crumbliness.
The result? I’ll be consuming plain yogurt by the gallon from here on out. How convenient that I made a ton of granola. And on that hypothetical island where only breakfast-y foods would be allowed, I could live on this alone.
Deb’s instructions are very thorough as usual, and I ended up with this combo:
dates
dried mangoes
currants
thompson raisins
sunflower seeds
slivered almonds
coconut (sweetened)
I threw together the above to make roughly three cups, added the mixture to oat flour, thick oats, salt and cinammon, then mixed up the whole lot with a smidgen of peanut butter, honey, agave, melted butter. I didn’t use any granulated sugar. Because of all the fruit I used, the granola is plenty sweet and yummilicious.
dried mango is in my top 5 fave foods. I’m obsessed with it for some reason… i have that cookbook and have delved into the dessert section a bit. That gooey butter cake/snickerdoodley thing? lasted about 10 minutes in my house!
I’m betting that gooey butter cake/snickerdoodley wouldn’t even last 10 minutes in ours – sounds absolutely phenomenal and I must try!
ha ha, I’m sitting here stuffing jelly beans in my mouth as I’m reading about how you’re trying to cut back on sugar. have you tried making your own yogurt? I found that if I used a Greek yogurt (Stonyfield, iirc) as my starter culture, the yogurt came out deliciously creamy and void of that icky plain yogurt taste.
of course, I did find that it was best when mixed with homemade strawberry jam. 😉
I’m so with you on the carby breakfast foods. Yum.
Wow, making yogurt from a starter sounds urban homesteader cool! I want to try! And man, I’m cursing all the candy from Easter, which is why I’m trying to eat less sugar 🙂
When I had my youngest daughter, one of my friends brought me some homemade granola as a gift. It became the breakfast that I look forward to getting up for, and now is a staple here. Haven’t tried dates in it though- need to give that a try!
Lovely photography!
I’m constantly amazed at how simple so many things are to make at home and taste so much better! What a lovely and thoughtful gift from your friend!