Steel Cut Maple Granola

While preparing to move apartments I was trying my hardest to use up as much of the food in my cupboards as I could, cooking as much rice and pasta in a week and a half than I have in the last six months. My quest wasn’t entirely successful as many of my attempts to clear out the cupboards just filled up them up in a different form – boxes of cereal turned into containers of chex mix and oats turned into jars of granola – but it was an excuse to keep cooking up until the actual move.

I’ve been eating a fair amount of granola this summer because it’s been far too hot for warm oatmeal, so when I polished off my last batch I decided to go ahead and make another to use up any remaining rolled oats and an assortment of partial bags of nuts and raisins. I used my standby granola recipe, cutting it in half, substituting steel cut oats for rolled oats when I ran out of the latter, and swapping maple syrup for some of the honey. Success! The steel cut oats add a big crunch that rolled oats lack, and although the maple flavor isn’t easily detectable, just knowing that it’s in there serves as a daily reminder that drizzling a little maple syrup over a bowl of yogurt and granola can only make the morning better.

Steel Cut Maple Granola

2 cups of a combination of rolled and steel cut oats

1/2 cup wheat germ

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1 cup unsalted nuts

1/4 cup sesame seeds

1/4 cup oil

Slightly less than 1/4 cup each honey and maple syrup

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 cup raisins

Rolled oats + steel cut oats

Oil, honey, syrup

Combine all of the dry ingredients except for the raisins in a large bowl.

Heat the oil, honey and syrup in a saucepan until they’re combined. Add that mixture as well as the vanilla to the dry ingredients. Stir to coat. Transfer to an oiled pan, and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 5-10 minutes until it starts to brown.