Country Living Magazine Feature and a Granola Recipe

-posted by Jayne

Last month we were contacted by a writer for the Country Living Magazine (the one put out by South Central Power Company), asking if we'd like to be featured in their "Food Scene" section.  They asked me to contribute a few recipes and wanted to know if they could come out and take a tour and a few pictures.  If you don't subscribe to the magazine- you can view the full article here:

https://issuu.com/nationalcountrymarket/docs/clm0816southcentral/18

If you've been following our blog for a while, you've likely seen these recipes before.  But in case you're like me and don't keep track of all the recipes you might want to try- I will post one of them here once again.  This is a recipe for our Super Chunky Honey Almond Granola:

2/3 cup raw honey
4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
5 cups old fashioned rolled oats
2 cups raw almonds, chopped course
2 cups raisins or other dried fruit
1. Adjust oven rack to upper middle position and pre-heat to 325 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Chop almonds.
3. Whisk together the honey, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk in oil. Fold in oats and almonds until thoroughly coated.
4. Transfer oat mixture to prepared baking sheet and spread across sheet into thin, even layer (about 3/8 in thick). Using a stiff metal spatula, compress oat mixture until very compact. Bake until lightly browned, about 30 mins, rotating pan once halfway through baking. Do not stir! This keeps the granola in "chunk" form rather than loose and dry. Here is what is looks like when finished.

5. Cool on a wire rack to room temperature, about 1 hour. Break cooled granola into pieces of desired size. Stir in dried fruit. I used a mixture of craisins and raisins, but I also like to use chopped dried apricots, too

And here is a fun tip from Cook's Illustrated. For better granola... you must have fat. Without the oil, the oats become crisp and dry. When the water in the honey evaporates in the heat of the oven, the sugars left behind develop into a thin coating on the oats and nuts. Without adding fat, the sugar coating becomes brittle and dry.  So as much as you might want to skip the fat- don't do it!  It's what makes granola taste like granola - not dry flaky oats!