Olive Oil and Maple Granola Bars

Hi, friends. I’ve been away for awhile, and I’ve missed you. I couldn’t stay away forever, and hope that 2015 will be a true new beginning, with more posts and sharing in this space. In the meantime, if you want to catch up with me in “realtime,” follow along on Instagram for the meal-to-meal update of what’s simmering in the kitchen, and tell me what you’d like to see me share here. What brought me back?  Granola Bars. Of course.

Granola bars are an essential nutrient in this house – easy to grab in the morning on your way out the door for a quick breakfast, or to slip into a bag for snacks while traveling. I’m endlessly tweaking, trying new flavor combinations, spices, sweeteners and nut butters to stick ‘em together, but I get bored…even with four recipes already posted here!

Earlier this fall, my girl Johanna, from the fabulous DeFloured Bakery, gifted me some granola clusters leftover from her experiments with making granola bars. As we were discussing technique, materials and “goo-stickiness-factor,” she mentioned that she was only using olive oil and maple syrup for the fat and sweetener, and that the combination made for a more savory bar with the sweetness muted, even though there was the same amount of maple syrup as I would use in sugars and honey in my recipes. Then I tasted the granola, and I was SOLD. I had to get back in the game and start playing.

Johanna’s granola clusters had the same savory crispness of my favorite granola recipe from Molly – with the combination of maple and olive oil making for a very satisfying, not too sweet granola that is irresistible for snacking or scattering atop a small bowl of greek yogurt. I wanted to achieve that same crispness that the olive oil brings, but in bar form.

This would prove to be a great challenge, as the oil being a more slippery partner for the thinner maple syrup, my initial forays resulted in delicious granola, but not the sturdy, yet crispy bars I was seeking. A few lucky friends have been sampling the evolution of this recipe for weeks as I went from loose granola, to fragile bars, to an almost-there bar that just didn’t quite hold up to transport in my lunchbag without crumbling. Today, I got the mix right, and now it’s time to release it to you.

The finished bars are less spiced than my cocoa granola bars or smoked paprika bars, as I wanted the nuts and deep savoriness of the maple and olive oil to be the star here, so I just warmed things up a touch with a little garam masala, cinnamon, allspice and black pepper for a hint of mystery.

Coconut Garam Masala Granola Bars
Makes 24 Bars (4 rows, 6 bars per row)

Note: This is a smaller batch than my other granola bar recipes, so please use a quarter sheet pan (9×13 rimmed baking sheet).
Inspired by Orangette and Defloured Bakery 

• 2 ½ cups gluten free rolled oats (I use Trader Joe’s)
• 1 ½ c mixed seeds and nuts (I used a mix of sunflower seeds, pepitas, pecans)
• ¾ cup unsweetened large flake dried coconut
• 2 T Butter
• ⅓ c olive oil
• ¼ c  cup maple
• 1/3 c brown rice syrup
• 1 T honey
• 1/4 cup almond butter (I use Trader Joes salted, unsweetened creamy)
• ¾ tsp morton’s kosher salt
• ¾ tsp garam masala
• ¾ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ ground allspice
• ¼ tsp ground black pepper

Equipment:

• quarter sheet pan (9×13 rimmed baking sheet)
• small saucepan, preferably non-stick
• small silicone spatula
• large, stiff silicone spatula
• parchment paper

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 300, convection setting if you’ve got it.
2. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper, and add the oats and pepitas and sunflower seeds, and gently mix together with your (clean) hands.
3. Combine the maple syrup, olive oil, almond butter, salt, garam masala, black pepper, allspice and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Set aside.
4. Pop the oat mixture into the oven, on the middle rack. Toast for 20 minutes, stir, and then add the coconut flakes and pecans, stirring into the mix with a spatula. Toast for another 10 minutes then stir again. Toast for another 8 minutes, while you heat the saucepan of liquids.
5. Place the syrup/oil saucepan over medium heat, stirring regularly with a small spatula to incorporate the spices and almond butter into the liquids until you have a smooth “glue.” Do not bring the mixture to a boil, but slow lazy bubbles are okay – you need the syrup just on the edge of simmering. Once the final 8 minutes of oat toasting is done and the coconut is starting to turn a warm toasty tan at the edges, the liquid mixture should be warm and a smooth, thickish mixture with approximately the thickness of cold maple syrup, dripping off a raised spatula in ribbons.
6. Remove the oat mixture out of the oven and pour into a large mixing bowl.
7. Raise the oven temp to 325, convection setting if you have it.
8. Pour half of the syrupy glue over top and mix into the oats using a stiff spatula, ensuring all the oats get a thin skim of the sticky mixture. Then, drizzle the last half of the goo over the oats, and stir together – put some muscle and patience into it to ensure an even, sticky coat.
9. Place the parchment paper back onto your rimmed baking sheet, and pour the sticky mixture out onto the baking sheet into a few lumps across the full pan. Use your spatula to spread the mixture into a semi-even packed layer. Take another smaller sheet of parchment and place it over one corner of the pan, and use your hands to press the mixture firmly down with even pressure into one well-packed layer, moving the smaller piece of parchment across the sheet pan as you go, until you’ve managed to press the entire sheet pan down. Peel the small piece of parchment off and discard
10. Return the pan to the oven, bake for 10 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees, and bake for 10-15 more minutes. The finished bars should be deeply golden, and you should see an almost toffee-like lacy candy forming at the edges. Remove the pan from the oven, and set on a cooling rack for 25 minutes, then cut while the bars are still warm.

Note: You do not want to let the bars fully cool before cutting – the olive oil/maple syrup mixture is a little more fragile than bars made with brown sugar/honey/brown rice syrup. If the bars fully cool, the bars will not cut as easily, and are more likely to crumble a bit.

Olive oil and maple granola bars – Left: before baking. Right: Deep golden brown after baking

Oatmeal Singles with Caramelized Whiskey Bananas

Oatmeal singles with caramelized whiskey bananas and chocolate chunks

We have a little problem in our house. A problem that manifests itself daily in hordes of small storage containers that return home each evening with us from work. All of the cooking done each weekend to provide healthy breakfasts, lunches and snacks results in many, many small dishes that fill the top rack of our dishwasher in a blink. Most weeknights, we run the dishwasher with a full-to-bursting top rack, and a fairly light bottom rack. I do not enjoy the daily putting away of the clean containers, that must be stacked just so in a near Tetris-like fashion, so I am always looking for a way to use fewer containers on a daily basis. Enter the oatmeal single.

While browsing around on Pinterest, I came across Emily’s recipe for baked oatmeal singles…the recipe is very similar to my own baked oatmeal, just baked into muffin form – genius! I took Emily’s recipe for banana chocolate muffins and amped it up a bit with caramelized bananas with a shot of whiskey…and fair warning, you might have to taste the caramelized bananas a time or two, just to make sure they’re edible. A cook has got to have quality control, right?!

The finished muffins are perfect for busy weekday mornings – just pop one in the micro for 25-30 seconds, and head on out the door with a warm breakfast in hand, ready for munching.

And friends, you should know that Mark calls these delicious little wonders “Grumblecakes,” after a cartoon from Home Star Runner. Be sure to click on the grumblecake in the bottom right corner at the end of the animation.

Even Santa likes oatmeal cakes with caramelized bananas

Baked Oatmeal Singles with Caramelized Whiskey Bananas
Serves 12

Oatmeal Mixture:
4 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Rolled Oats
2 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or other milk of your choice)
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or cinnamon)
2 eggs
3/4 tsp kosher salt

Mix-ins
3 bananas, peeled and sliced into rounds
3 T packed brown sugar
2 T butter
splash of whiskey (because you CAN)
1/4 cup dark chocolate mini chips

1. Scoop the oats into a large mixing bowl and set aside.
2. Pour the almond milk (room temp, or slightly warmed) into a medium sized mixing bowl. Add the two eggs, salt, pumpkin pie spice, and ¾ tsp kosher salt and whisk until you have a smooth mixture, with the eggs beaten into the milk mixture.
3. Pour the milk mixture over the oats, and stir gently to combine with a rubber spatula, and let the mixture rest while you deal with the bananas.
4. Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat and melt 1 T butter in it. Add the bananas, and stir them into the melted butter. Let them cook for 3-4 minutes, until they start to break down a bit at the edges, then stir in the brown sugar. Cook for another 1-2 minutes, until the bananas breakdown almost completely, into a caramel colored ooze, with lighter lumps of banana barely intact. If you feel like it, add a splash of whiskey or bourbon and stir into the bananas – 1-2 tablespoons should do it. Turn off the heat, and remove the bananas from the heat and set aside to cool.
5. Preheat the oven to 375F, convection if you’ve got it. Give the oat mixture a stir while you wait – the oats should have already soaked up much of the milky liquid.
6. When the oven is ready, spray 12 muffin tins with olive oil, or grease with butter.
7. Fold the caramelized bananas into the oat mixture, and then stir in the chocolate chunks.
8. Fill the muffin tins with the oat mixture – each cup should be full – the muffins won’t really rise.
9. Slide the muffins into the oven on the center rack and bake for 30-40 minutes – check for doneness at 30 minutes if baking in metal tins. If using a silicone muffin mold, you’ll likely need closer to 40 minutes to fully cook the oats.
10. The finished muffins should be browned on top, and if you slide a paring knife into the center of the cake, they should have a moist crumb, but not gooey.
11. Cool the cakes in the tin for 10 minutes, then slide a butter knife around the edge of each cake, and remove to cool fully on a cooling rack before storing in the fridge in a storage container for 1 week.  Reheat cakes in the microwave for 25-30 seconds each.

What’s your favorite quickie weekday morning breakfast to get the day started right? Share in the comments section below…

Grain-Free Granola Bars

It’s been a little quieter in the Whole Kitchen recently…I’ve been managing to still get a couple posts up each week, but there hasn’t been a lot of activity and creativity in the kitchen. I’ve got a little adrenal fatigue goin’ on from working too hard without taking much vacation time, and recent weekends have been pretty frantic too. My body is calling for a “time out,” and all I can do is say YES. Thankfully, I have some amazing healers on my side – my chiropractor and homeopath are getting me back on the path to wellness with extra support and a few supplements.

For my part, I need more sleep, exercise and meditation…three weeks into the new regime, I’m already feeling a positive change in my body and energy level. I’ve also signed up to run the Chicago Rock n Roll Half Marathon, so the extra exercise I need has been training runs for the big day. Working for the American Cancer Society, I participate in at least one of our events each year. My friend Emily manages the DetermiNation Charity Athlete program, and after having lunch with Emily and one of her committee members, David Pittman…I found myself wondering if I could join the ACS DetermiNation team too. I needed a new fitness goal, so I signed up. I’ll be running the half-marathon on August 1 to fight cancer for ACS (and don’t worry, I’ll be giving you an opportunity to support me later).

What does my tangent about adrenals and running have to do with food? Well, part of the healing path is simplifying my diet for a little while since my stomach has been a little quarrelsome. I’m giving my morning steel cut oats and granola bars a rest, and going as light on grains as I can manage. Green Kitchen Stories just posted a recipe for these nut bars – they’ve got a lot of protein, good fats and no sugar – they’re sweetened by the dates and dried fruit. The resulting bars are fantastic – good peanut butter flavor (always a favorite), crunchy nuts and a touch of sweetness from the fruit. The bars are a lot softer than granola bars, but they hold together pretty well if kept in the fridge. I’ll be very happy to start my mornings with these and a bowl of cinnamon quinoa for the next few weeks while I work on getting my energy back!

Grain-Free Granola Bars
makes 18 3″x3″ bars
Adapted from Green Kitchen Stories

1 1/3 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I used almonds, pepitas, cashews, sunflower seeds and peanuts)
2/3 cup natural peanut butter (or almond butter), unsweetened, unsalted
3 oz dates, chopped roughly
1/2 tsp salt
3-4 T water
1/2 cup chopped fruit (tart dried cherries and prunes)
2oz unsweetened coconut flakes
parchment paper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coarsely chop the nuts in a food processor (chop the almonds separately from the rest of the nuts, as they are much harder than the others). Dump the nuts onto a small sheet pan and toast for 10 minutes. Place the coconut and chopped fruit in a mixing bowl and set aside. While the nuts are toasting, scoop the peanut butter, chopped dates and water into a small sauce pan and heat the mixture on a low burner, stirring as you go. As the peanut butter warms, it may seize up a bit – add a touch more water. You just want the mixture to be warm, not hot, so that you can stir the mixture together.
2. After the nuts have been toasted for 10 minutes, pour the nuts into the mixing bowl with the fruit and coconut and stir the ingredients together. Pour the peanut butter mixture on top of the nuts, and use a stiff spatula to fold the mixture together until all the ingredients are coated in peanut butter. Line the sheet pan with parchment, then dump the sticky mixture onto the parchment. Use the back of your spatula to press the gooey mixture onto the pan in an even layer about 1/2″ thick – don’t worry if it doesn’t fill the whole sheet pan, mine covered about 80%. Use your hands to finish pressing the mixture into an even layer. Place the bars into the oven, and bake for 20-25 minutes to set the bars, then chill in the fridge for a couple of hours before cutting. Store the finished bars in a storage container in the fridge, with waxed paper between layers.

136 cal per 3×3″ bar, 90 cal from fat, 9.6g fat, 55mg sodium, 95 mg potassium, 11g carbs, 2g fiber, 4g sugars, 4g protein