Granola Recipe! (Money Saving Breakfast, and healthy too!)

When people find out that I make my own granola cereal for breakfast, a lot of people ask me for my recipe.  I haven't ever come up with an actual recipe, as I usually just guess on every amount and keep tweaking until it works... until now. 

I have officially come up with my Banana Granola recipe, that will save some money on healthy breakfasts.  I'm not sure if this recipe is actually cheaper than purchasing puffed rice or corn flakes, but I can guarantee you that it's much more healthy!  And for the price of the higher quality cereals, I think you'd be better off making your own!

This recipe has a banana base, rather than an oil base like so many other granola recipes.  If you really want to save money, check for the overripe, brown bananas that the grocery stores will sell you at a discounted price!

Banana Granola

Preheat the oven to 300

Blend the following ingredients until liquified:

• 6 overripe bananas
• 1 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup honey

Once those are well blended, add:

• 1/2 cup of oil

Don't mix the oil for too long or it will make the mixture thicken into a mayonnaise texture!  I usually mix for about 10 seconds on a low speed just to incorporate the oil, and then I stop.

In a separate bowl, or directly in the roasting pan you will use, mix together the following ingredients

• 2.25 kg of rolled oats (about 24 cups)
• 6 cups of unsweetened coconut
• 2 cups of ground flax seeds
• 8 cups of unsalted peanuts
• 1 cup of bran flakes

 Bake in a large uncovered roasting pan (the kind that you'd cook a turkey in!) for somewhere around an hour, making sure that you mix well at 10 minute intervals.  When you stir the baking granola, make sure that you scrape the bottom and sides very well as the molasses and honey likes to burn onto the corners of the pan if you aren't careful.  Thoroughly stirring the granola also ensures even baking.  The granola is done when it is  looking a medium brown color, and looks fairly crispy.  The granola needs to sit uncovered for up to 24 hours (cover with a sheer towel if you are worried about bugs) so that it can dry and crisp up nicely.

Once properly cooled and dried, this granola will keep very well for a couple of weeks (we've had it for up to 3 weeks) in a sealed, clean container stored in a cool dry place. 

Variations:
This recipe is extremely easy to change by adding and subtracting ingredients, and switching them with what your family prefers.

Raisins and other dried fruits can be added, but only after the granola is cooked and has cooled for a couple of hours.  If you add the raisins directly the recipe before cooking, they will all burn and you will have black little burnt raisins all through the granola.  It's not very tasty that way!

You can add wheat germ, oat bran or rice bran in place of, or in addition to the flax seeds and bran flakes.  If you want to add more than a couple cups of dry ingredients in this recipe, make sure you add another banana to the original blending mixture to offset the additional dry ingredients. 

Instead of or in addition to peanuts, you can use almonds, cashews, walnuts, or any other type of nut that you like.  Or, if you and your family don't do nuts, switch out the nuts for some nutritious seeds like pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and/or sesame seeds.

Instead of vanilla flavoring, feel free to try some other flavors that will better match the other ingredients.  For example, if you use walnuts, try using maple extract instead of vanilla.  You can use almond extract as well to enhance the addition of almonds.

I like to limit the sugars that I use in my baking, so I am careful to use unsweetened coconut.  "Normal" coconut has icing sugar in it.  If your family prefers a sweeter taste, you can add more honey, 1/2 cup of corn syrup, sweetened coconut, or 1 cup of brown sugar to the mix. 



So there you have it!  If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to leave a comment here and let me know what you think.

Electricity Calculator! How much does your stuff cost you?

When I opened my Epcor bill last month, I nearly fainted.  $180???  Are you kidding?  We didn't really do anything differently, I certainly didn't have the AC running for the month of September, and I didn't really have the furnace on a lot either. 

As I sat there staring at the bill, I do realize that electricity costs fluctuate, but for the most part, I wanted to make sure that what I was doing wasn't causing our bill to rise.  I am pretty clueless when it comes to knowing what electricity costs... and even what it all does and how it all works.  I had no idea how to know what used more and less electricity, and I didn't even know how to lower our usage! 

I found this handy calculator that did all that funny math for me, and was very useful to my limited knowledge self!  :)  FortisAlberta offers this electricity cost calculator on their website.

After typing in my numbers, I was shocked... I had no idea it cost me about a dollar for every hour that my oven was used.  I didn't realize that to let my printer stay on in stand-by mode all day and night, it was about $10 a month.  I had no idea that using a small burner on my stove used half the electricity as a large one. 

I'm sure some of you are shaking your head right now at my ignorance, but I'm also sure that there some of you who are having a "light bulb moment" (okay, bad joke...) and are also learning the same things I just did.

If I'm to save money on electricity, I need to know what things are most effective in doing that.  Obviously things like the furnace fan, some lights, and other odds and ends aren't going to change.  But I can use my crock pot instead of my oven, and I can set my dryer to a setting that will leave the clothes dry, but not bone dry.  I can limit the amount I use my dishwasher, and make sure that the lights aren't on when they don't need to be. 

Here's hoping for a smaller electricity bill next month!! 

Do you have any realistic tips on how to save electricity?

What About You?

Do you spend money on things that aren't very frugal? 

Use the comments box to give your opinion.

What about you?

So I've given a few ways of saving money so far, I'd love to hear from you now!  What are you doing today to save money?  What are some of your money-saving secrets and ideas?

Use the comments box to tell me what you think.

-Beki