Who loves breakfast??? ME, ME, ME I would scream if someone asks. I must say that there is something amazing in the versatility of what is considered ‘acceptable’ in the morning- sweet, savoury, hot, cold, it doesn’t really matter as each culture has a very different interpretation of whats expected as food as first order of the day.
I personally enjoy them all- sometimes sweet, like toast with jam or a flaky pastry, but sometimes just a toast with tomato puree and olive oil, which is a very traditional Spanish breakfast I must say, so I guess not so surprising coming from me!
My kids at this time are more oriented towards the sweet type of breakfast, party because their nursery provides mostly sweet stuff (which is a bit annoying some times) but also because they re not really very hungry when they first wake up, so they eat pretty sparingly.
We run out of granola this morning so I decided we needed to make some ourselves as it was raining and didn’t really fancy going all the way to the health food store. Looking around the kitchen I could only find bananas, some nuts in the cupboards, some date paste and oats (which we ALWAYS have handy). And the easiest but yummiest granola recipe come to my mind- mashed banana, date paste, nut and oats granola, flavoured with some super tasty cinnamon. Child friendly to eat but also to make and so I got the kids involved!
Ariana made most of it by herself as its very easy and doesn’t need equipment to be prepared except the oven part. Needless to say that we ate 1/2 of one tray as a snack as soon as it was cool enough because it was super yummy, but we still have a large glass jar for a few days!
We kind of made it up as we went, but the recipe would be something like this:
3 cups of jumbo oats
1 cup of crushed nuts (I love this brand and buy it in large quantities as we make so much stuff with oats!)
3 bananas
2/3 cup of date paste*
1 tablespoon cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon vanilla powder`
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mash the banana and mix it with the date paste, add the cinnamon, vanilla and salt and mix well. Add the oats until the mixture is bonded together, add the nuts, which we made into smaller pieces before adding them to make it easier to eat the granola later. Once it was all mixed, we put it in the oven in large trays to make sure it was thinly spread to allow it to dry evenly and 20 minutes later you will have the granola ready.We did stop 1/2 way and moved it around to make sure it cook well in all sides. Let it cool down before storing it in air tight jars and eat within 5 days (not tested this as this is our fist time making this granola, but in my experience unless they are very dry, bananas start tasting off after than long). To be honest, we doubt it will last that long as its truly yummy as both breakfast and snack.
*dates blended with a bit of water and a dash of salt to make a paste that is used a sweetener and binder in vegan and refined sugar free recipes. For a quick recipe go here.
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