granola with apricots and dates

This weekend, my cooking and eating and grocery shopping centered around a self-diagnosis that I am not eating enough iron-rich foods. I arrived at this conclusion while reading a thread on the RunnersWorld.com discussion boards about low iron levels, and although I don't have most of the symptoms that were described, I thought that at the very least I could stand to focus on incorporating a variety of iron-rich foods into my diet. I'm often quite fatigued after a long run, and lately also after some runs of less than an hour, so I figure it's worth tweaking my foods and seeing if that has any effect.

But, infrequent meat-eater as I am, the simple solution to eat more beef is not the route I'm taking. Quick Internet researching yielded apricots and several seeds and nuts as good sources of the stuff. This, combined with my ever-mounting guilt about buying packaged foods, pointed me in the direction of homemade granola. (Above photograph is before baking; below, the end result.) It's ridiculously simple to make, with less fat and sugar than most store-bought varieties, and it allows me to continue this trend of eating oats for breakfast without getting sick of oatmeal ... which, I can sense, is about to happen, as I made it almost every day last week.

As usual, I looked to Mark Bittman as my guide. His recipe from the New York Times (January 10, 2007) seems simpler than the slightly different version in How to Cook Everything. His recipe includes 2 cups total nuts/seeds and 1 cup total fruit; I doubled the fruit, and while I eyeballed my nuts and seeds (and wheat germ!), what I had in the house amounted to less than 2 cups total. So the amounts below are suggestions only.

Granola
Adapted from Mark Bittman
Time: 40 minutes
Yield: About 9 cups, or at least 18 servings

6 c. rolled oats (not quick-cooking or instant)
1/2 c. raw almonds, chopped
1/2 c. raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 c. raw sunflower seeds
1/4 c. sesame seeds
1/4 c. wheat germ
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Dash salt
1 c. maple syrup
1 c. chopped dried apricots
1 c. chopped dates

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a very large bowl (I used a shallow, wide soup pot), combine oats, nuts and seeds, cinnamon, salt and maple syrup. Place on a sheet pan and put in oven. Bake for 30 minutes or a little longer, stirring every 4-6 minutes to brown evenly and prevent burning. Says Mark: "The browner it gets without burning, the crunchier the granola will be."

2. Remove pan from oven and add dried fruit. Cool on a rack, stirring occasionally until granola reaches room temperature. Transfer to a sealed container and store in the refrigerator; per Mark, it will keep indefinitely.

A caveat: This makes a LOT of granola. I've filled a large tupperware and almost a whole freezer storage bag, too. You might want to halve the recipe the first time ... which I tried to do, but then had a little mishap with the salt. I read the measurement of the cinnamon, though it was the quantity for the salt, and halved it. After dumping in the half-teaspoon into my bowl with everything else, I realized the mistake, and rather than throw everything out, I proceeded with making the full recipe to balance out the salt. It turned out saltier than I wanted, but it is hardly overpowering or unpleasant.

Mark also suggests other exciting flavorings, which I can't wait to try--notably, vanilla and peanut butter (though probably not together). Endless experimentation seems possible, and I'm already thinking about this as a contender for 2009 Christmas gifts.