I am all about having the right tools in the kitchen to make life easier. When I counsel people on how to improve their diets a common complaint is “I just don’t have time to cook good meals!” My first response to this is: “what kind of tools do you have in your kitchen?” This makes all the difference in the world! I do not think that I could cook without my pressure cooker, rice cooker and crock pot. OK, I could, but it would take me a lot longer.
A few years ago I really wanted to use my crock pot more so I bought several cookbooks. Who knew you could make so many things using a crock pot. I was thinking soups, stews, meats, but granola? I never would have thought! Well, if you think that you do not have time to make homemade granola because you don’t have time to stand around the kitchen waiting to turn the granola every few minutes so it won’t burn – pull out your crock pot and give this a try!
It was so easy. If you have a favorite granola recipe or something sitting on the back burner waiting for you to have time, pull it out and let’s get cooking! Basically what I did was put my dry ingredients in a large bowl. I used gluten-free oats, pumpkin seeds, coconut, black currants, and maple sugar. The recipe also called for milk powder but since I can’t have milk products yet, I used brown rice protein powder instead to give it an extra boost. The next step was to turn the crock pot on high and melt/heat the liquids for 30 minutes. I did not have that much time so I decided to heat the liquids on the stove in a small pot. I used agave syrup and 1/2 cup of oil, instead of 1 cup and used 1/2 cup of applesauce as well. Once it was heated through, I poured the liquids over the dry and mixed it until everything was coated.
I did preheat the crock pot while I was preparing the ingredients. I had it on high for maybe 15 minutes. It seemed pretty hot when I added the oat mixture. Here comes the easy part. I cooked it on high for 1 1/2 hours with the lid off, stirring once every 30 minutes. After the hour and a half, I turned the crock pot to low, placed the lid on it, and left it for 3 hours. The recipe had said 4 hours but when I came home after 3, it seemed pretty well cooked. I removed the lid for another 1/2 hour to cook off some of the moisture and then it was done!
I allowed it to cool and then placed it in an airtight container. The next morning I had delicious granola with oat milk for breakfast! Boy, that was easy!
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