It all started on my grand Camino de Santiago, a pilgramage that began as a whim with me and my best friend D. On our first day, after tossing and turning in bed at the dark stone-floored room of an albergue (the pilgramage dormitories), we woke up at the peak of dawn, full of hope and anticipations-but most of all, hungry.
Tiptoeing around the kitchen, we rummaged through the cupboards and shelves, searching for the so-called 'gratis' breakfast. It was only us and another fellow traveler, who seemed to have prepared his own meal and milk.
The poor hungry, true pilgrims as we seemed, he took pity on us and reached into his bag, and motioned us to cup our hands. Naive and clueless, we did so and was met with golden rewards: one large handful of granola each. It was love at first bite (or crunch?).
So called 'museli' in Spain (in the US, museli is usually a dry, grainy cereal with no crunchiness or sweetness of granola), this granola became our daily snack. We would buy a pack and add this 500g sack to our already heavy luggage (6kg) because we loved it so much. After a one or two hour walk, sitting down, munching on granola, savoring the nuts and sharing another bar of chocolate would be our precious moments of the day. When we found a supermarket (a rare instance in the middle-of-nowhere countryside), we would scavenge the store for this precious snack.
At college, my love for granola has continued. It is good that they only serve cereal at breakfast and lunch, or I would have been munching on granola all day. However, ever since Val(our sad school dining hall) changed their granola brand to nature valley granola which is too crunchy to the point that it gives strain to your teeth, I have been suffering from a granola deficit+dissatisfactory problem.
Therefore, when I saw the Olive Oil granola recipe in the NYT, I knew I had to try it out. Pistachios, pumpkin seeds,almonds,sunflower seeds oats, maple syrup, olive oil, and leftover dried apricots, I mixed them all together in one big bowl, sprinkled loads and loads of cinnamon and a little bit of cardamom (H disapproved, he didn't like the smell), spread it out on two baking sheets and popped it in the oven.
The result was.......... unsatisfactory. It was a too oily (since I added more ingredients to the recipe, I thought I would need more oil.... but I guess it was too much oil..), and burnt (I thought the recipe called for 50 minutes, but it was actually 40. I never knew 10 minutes could make such a difference). I was devastated. All my ingredients, my anticipation, my effort only resulted in a huge bagful of oily, burnt granola. Oh well, my friends finished it off in a week though. Oh, what would hungry college students not eat!
Of course, I did not give up. As the end of this semester was approaching, I mustered up my courage, scraped up all my leftover ingredients from my first batch and charged to ** kitchen this weekend with H. This time, I decreased the oil and sugar and also added cranberries (credit to val), chopped up almonds, hempseeds (val), steel-cut oats, wheat germ (val) mixed it up, only to discover the baking pans at Drew had disappeared. Alas! What to do with a big bowl full of pre-baked granola and no sheets to make it on! But we were not discouraged. We set our mission to steal the baking sheets at * kitchen, justifying ourselves that the * people were nasty rascals who 1) only liked to utilize their kitchen to party (always chips and mixers in the fridge) 2) acted like owning a kitchen was some sort of new college-breed royalty always suspicious of anybody (more so to Asians is one of our guesses) who dared to step into their precious kitchen. So be it! Mission was easily accomplished without even a pinch of guilt.
Success was mine! The smell in the kitchen was so good all of the passing people curiously poked around the oven, asking what was this amazing aroma. The oats were crisp, salty, chewy, not oily at all and just fantastic. I really liked the crunches coming from the baked almonds and slight nuttiness coming from the hempseeds and steel-cut oats, and a little bit or sour and sweetness coming from raisins and craisins. And with the granola baked just the right amount of time, I could taste the fragrant olive oil and the sweet and salty combination working perfectly. It's all about balance these days. The foods are not just strictly divided into the sweet or savory category, but now integration is the key. I think this was one of my best accomplishments in the kitchen. We proudly marched home with our tupperware full of sweet, warm, golden granola, leaving the people at ** drooling.
I happily munch on these every morning on ricotta cheese, blueberries and more cinnamon. No such thing as too much cinnamon! Ah... my glorious triumph over granola!
*The baking sheets are still in H's car. I will return it when I feel like it.
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