auntie sarah's coconut granola.

SARAH is actually my mother-in-law ❤️ but one of her many other titles, “auntie sarah,” sounds much more fitting alongside a granola recipe. 😊

i just looove how mapley and crunchy and chunky her granola is - not all loose and sandy, no way.

the lighter crunch of all the coconut flakes against the crunchier crunch of the nuts & seeds….oooh i fancy that experience.

her granola seems a little bit different every time we have it, but that’s the beauty of a recipe that’s so versatile!

sarah makes it gluten-free by omitting the oats (probably why her version is so chunky, which i adore), but i love oats so i kept them in the recipe.

i used extra coconut flakes and a little extra maple syrup to compensate for sweetness in this recipe ratio.

another idea that would be great is to use melted coconut oil instead of the olive oil - or better yet, an equal combination of both!

make sure to taste your seeds in advance for freshness - i could tell the sunflower seeds that i used were a bit funky after it was a little too late.

chopped dried cherries are great in this granola. i used chopped dates and that is also lovely. i’m not too much of a dried cranberry fan, but they would be nice, too. there are also orange flavored dried cranberries that i have a random bag of in my miscellaneous foodstuffs bin. basically - any chopped up or small dried fruit of your choosing would suffice. or leave it out altogether!

….just had an idea. if this were a “dessert granola” (a thing??) you could toss in some chocolate covered almonds, raisins, acai berries, etc after the whole mixture has completely cooled.

YUM. a bonus snack mix recipe.

also a big shout out to the passionfruit flavor of the ellenos greek yogurt - holyyyyyy moses, it has to be one of the best things i’ve ever tasted. pete is nuts for passionfruit & lilikoi like they have growing all over in hawaii. those little tangy seeds and the bright juiciness will just make you feel alive!

this ellenos yogurt is a splurge. if we have it on hand, i’ll put a scoop of plain greek yogurt on the bottom of the bowl and a small scoop of the ellenos fancy yogurt on top, and then all the toppings. i would never let us eat the whole container in one sitting unless it were, say, christmas! ha! it is a special occasion treat for us. it is sooo delicious and rich and tastes like dessert!

this is now just veering into dessert for breakfast territory. 😛

this recipe yields a ton of granola - so feel free to halve anything to make a smaller batch, or give a jar of it to a friend or neighbor. 😊

i’ve been really enjoying having it around for variety and crunch in our morning yogurt bowls.

thank you to my sweet MIL, sarah, for sharing this with me!

Sarah’s Coconut Granola

Makes about 2 Quarts

Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups oats

• 1 cup raw pepitas, hulled pumpkin seeds

• 1/2 cup hulled sunflower seeds (taste for freshness!)

• 1 1/4 cup walnuts or pecans, or a mixture of both, chopped

• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut flakes

• 1 - 2 tsp. kosher salt, to taste

• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil or melted coconut oil, or a mixture of both

• 2/3 cup pure maple syrup

• 1/2 cup chopped dates, dried cherries or cranberries

• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon

• 1 - 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Instructions-

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Line a large rimmed sheet tray with parchment or a silicone liner.

Gather and prepare all ingredients and combine in a large bowl until evenly coated with maple syrup and the oils. Add any extra salt to taste.

Evenly spread the granola across the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, tossing the granola every 15 minutes or so. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes until all the components are evenly golden. Watch carefully for any burning during the last 5 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool completely. Store in glass jars or quart containers at room temperature.

Enjoy as a snack, on yogurt bowls, ice cream, oatmeal, with fruit, etc!

qp

crunchy baguette french toast with fresh blackberry sauce.

this one goes out to all the soggy bread haters & texture lovers out there. 

i had a bad extended experience with french toast when i was a kid. my morning babysitter would make it all the time and dunk the white bread in sooo much egg and then barely cook it...so it was completely soggy with gross semi wet, semi cooked scrambled eggs stuck to the bread. i remember the french toast being bright yellow, not like a pretty tan/brown as it should be. then it was doused it in cheap maple syrup. it was essentially a very wet egg bread food item all soggified by the landslide of syrup. makes me want to gag just recollecting it all. 

i couldn't face french toast for manyyyy years. i eventually started lying to her and telling her i'd already ate breakfast at home...but then would be starving until lunch time at school. 

[i realize how bratty/unappreciative this makes me sound, but this was one of the few foods i would absolutely refuse to eat at that age (it physically made me gag!) - and actually lie my way into not having to eat it. this is a place i went before school every morning for the first 10 years of my life - it was a very longstanding battle between this particular french toast and me. but it was just not good, i tell ya. you wouldn't want to eat it either. and no offense to my babysitter - i'd eat up her pancakes & coffee cakes & muffins like there was no tomorrow...but that horrid f*ckinnnn french toasttttt...........oh nuh uhhhh.]

ENTER CORN FLAKE ENCRUSTED CRUNCHYYYY FRENCH TOAST, USA.

actually i'd gotten over my french toast phobia soon enough when my friends' parents would make it and i'd see that it looked brownish and not nuclear yellow. but i mean fast forward to the first time i ever encrusted my french toast with corn flake crumbles, and i was forever changed. 

alsoooo, i made a blueberry sauce one morning for these crepes that pete and i were making, and it was so dang scrumptious. so i wanted to make a blackberry sauce for something equally scrumptious.

^^^ aw yeaaa slice that bread at a 45 degree angle. makes 'em longer and not so stubby. also, more surface area for the crunchers to rest.

adding vanilla and a good amount of cinnamon to your liquid mixture is reeeal important. to me.

mmm, fresh blackberries mashed with a little coconut oil and brown sugar. lightly sweetened and so juicy and flavorful.

after you've cooked your french toast as you regularly would, dunk one side back into the egg & milk batter. then cover it in bits of corn flakes. its about to be a fabulous texture explosion, people.

notice i only added the flakes to the top of the toast - however people get tiny bits of cornflakes to adhere to ALL sides of their french toast is beyond me. i've tried. you're amazing, you anti-gravity cornflakin' french toast makin' wizards...

so pleased with this chewy, crispy, crunchy, cinnamon-y, juicy blackberry french toast recipe! all the textures and flavors are just GRRRRRRREAT. hey that's frosted flakes, should probably give those a whirl on french toast, too. 😉😊😋

Crunchy Baguette French Toast & Fresh Blackberry Sauce

Makes about 10 small pieces of baguette French toast

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup milk (I used 1%)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 baguette (sliced 1 inch thick - at a 45 degree angle to make them longer)
• 1 cup corn flakes cereal (smashed into small bits)
• 1 pint blackberries
• 1 TB coconut oil or butter
• 2 TB brown sugar

For the blackberry sauce, wash the berries and mash them in a pan over medium heat with a little coconut oil or butter. I used a potato masher, but you could just use a fork. Add the brown sugar and stir. Let simmer on low for 5-10 minutes to thicken. Store extras in an airtight jar or container in the fridge. 

For the french toast, slice your baguette at a 45 degree angle (as shown in the photos) to make each slice longer.  In a small bowl, whisk the milk, eggs, cinnamon and vanilla. Pour the mixture into a pie pan or wide bowl. Add the baguette slices to the liquid and let each side soak for about 30 seconds. 

Heat a pan to medium and grease with a pat of butter. Add the soaked bread slices and cook for about 2 minutes per side. Dunk one side of the bread back into the remaining liquid mixture and place wet side up onto a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Sprinkle and firmly press the corn flake bits onto the wet part of the bread. Bake for about 5 minutes until corn flakes are extra crisp and lightly browned. 

[If you're pro enough to coat the bread on all sides with corn flakes, please do! I've tried it several times and it always looks crazy and gets soggy somehow.]

Serve with warm fresh blackberry sauce and whipped cream if you so desire! :)

qp