Zesty Orange, Hemp & Walnut Granola

GRANOLA RECIPE TIME!

HELLO lovely folks. I hope you are all having a wonderful season change this October. This side of the world (South Africa) it is lovingly moving into Spring and Summer – thank goodness. I am totally a Summer baby and my heart has missed the sunny delight of sitting under the sun and soaking up the alive pranic energy radiating down onto us here on Earth. I honestly do not know how people live in cold, cloudy places. Kudos to you – you are STRONG.

My love, Adam and I have zooted off for the weekend to spend some much needed alone time in Jeffrey’s Bay in my gran’s old house RIGHT by the Ocean. It is proving to be an absolutely magical weekend getaway. The sun is out, we are eating beautiful food, taking dips in the ocean, reading lots and doing yoga. Perfect weekend? I think yes. There is something so incredibly magical about diving into the ocean and feeling your whole body tingle with aliveness. It feels like it completely clears out all the energy channels, also known as nadis in yogic tradition. 

Yesterday evening, I realized, to my dismay, that I’d left my last batch of Granola at home. And for someone like me, having a smoothie bowl in the morning HAS GOT TO CONTAIN THE CRUNCH FACTOR. I was also in my creative flow and decided I should come up with a new granola recipe for the blog anyway so I decided to get to it with the minimal ingredients I had on hand (the house is pretty empty as it is just used for holidays, now that my gran does not live there anymore). Adam and I had bought some basics: fruit, veg, rice and soy sauce (the essentials ;) for those of you that don’t know – my go-to sauce is soy sauce and tahini mixed together to create a magical golden sauce of goodness so it definitely makes its way to the "essentials" list). On the way here we also stopped at a shop and saw some really yummy looking air-dried naartjies or mandarins. Then, when standing in the kitchen and trying to fix the dilemma of the forgotten granola I thought YES: Zesty Orange, Hemp & Walnut Granola. 

Ingredients:

·      2 cups rolled oats

·      1.5 tsp hemp powder

·      ¼ cup maple syrup/brown rice syrup/barley malt syrup/honey

·      2 tablespoons toasted sunflower seeds

·      6 toasted walnuts

·      Zest of ½-1 large orange (depending on how Zesty Orange-y you want it. To make the zest I used the big holes on a standard grater)

·      15g air-dried naartjie/mandarin

·      1 ¼ tsp salt

·      I have a sneaky suspicion that adding ground cardamom would just be ridiculously good but we are low on ingredients here so I will have to try the recipe with cardamom before I can tell you for sure. But optionally add that in if you’d like.

Method:

1.   Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

2.   Get a baking tray and either lightly grease it with olive oil or line with parchment paper.

3.   In a big bowl, place the rolled oats, syrup, salt & hemp seed powder (and cardamom if wanting to add). Mix together until well combined.

4.   Place into the oven. The total baking time (depending on your oven) will be between 15-20 minutes – you’ll have to keep your eye on it and keep turning the granola once in a while.

5.   Half way through the cooking process add the grated orange zest (keeping it bigger rather than small/finely grated will add texture, color and nuggets of individual bursts of orange as well as spread the orange flavor throughout).

6.   While it continues to cook, toast your sunflower seeds in a pan. Then set aside. Then toast your walnuts, set aside.

7.   Once the granola is done cooking, add in the seeds and nuts and then the air-dried naartjie. Toss. Allow it to cool. And then place in your jar!

8.   ENJOY! On top of smoothie bowl (like pictured below), with fruit, as is or on top of cooked oatmeal porridge.