Friday, February 6, 2015

Raw Chocolate Sprouted Buckwheat Granola Recipe- Nut Free, Refined Sugar Free, Vegan Option, Gluten Free, Oat Free

 photo granola_zps94e4f6dc.jpgI've written before about my issue with breakfast- I don't necessarily have energy to be cooking in the morning (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't), so often I just end up relying on bought cereal- generally rice crispies- and milk or non dairy milk for our breakfast. The thing is- bought cereal isn't so cheap, and its pretty non nutritious and/or full of junk.
I've tried some recipes for homemade gluten free cereal, but they were pretty "meh". The healthy homemade cereals most common out there tend to be granola, but as someone who can't eat oats, those don't work for me... and the grain free granolas tend to be heavily based on coconut (which gives me stomach aches) and nuts (super expensive)
. I'd seen some recipes for homemade buckwheat granola, made with green buckwheat, and decided to come up with my own recipe. I've made it also with sprouted buckwheat and also not- so whichever it is that you want to do, it works both ways. I also have made it with a variety of natural sweeteners- I don't make mine super sweet- I usually serve mine with chopped fruit and/or homemade jam so it doesn't need to be super sweet, but you can make yours sweeter if you want to.
The benefit of sprouting buckwheat (as well as everything else) is it makes it more digestible and releases more nutrients into your body that way, but this works fine for non sprouted buckwheat as well.
If you want a non chocolate variety, you can also try out this recipe for buckwheat granola.

Raw Chocolate Sprouted Buckwheat Granola Recipe- Nut Free, Refined Sugar Free, Gluten Free, Oat Free

Ingredients:
5-5.5 cups green buckwheat
1 cup coconut sugar/sucanat, date syrup, or 1/2 cup honey or maple syrup or 3/4 cup sugar (white or brown)- or more to taste
1/2 cup oil (your choice which, just not olive oil)
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions:
1. Either soak your buckwheat in water for 20 minutes, or sprout it for 1-2 days. To sprout, soak it in water for 20-30 minutes, then strain and wash very well (you need to wash away the starchiness) and then set on the counter for 24-48 hours, rinsing it every 12 hours or so, until it starts growing a little tail.

2. Mix in all the other ingredients.

3. Lay out on 2 cookie trays, as evenly as possible.

4. Dehydrate either in a dehydrator, or in an oven on the lowest setting with the door propped open, for 6-12 hours. After 6 hours, check periodically to see if it's ready. Dehydrate until it is fully dry, no moisture left at all.

5. Serve with milk and fruit, as a breakfast cereal (homemade sesame milk is my go to for this), or with yogurt, ideally homemade- either dairy yogurt or dairy free yogurt.

Enjoy!

What do you generally eat for breakfast? What do you do to keep breakfast cheap and nutritious? Does this look like a recipe you'd try?

4 comments:

  1. I wondered if you have ever posted how you save money while eating a healthy diet? I have changed our diet over the past 3 years but as a result my grocery budget has gone up. I'm now spending around $600 for 2 people. I really need to bring it down since we are living on a lower income.

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    1. Define healthy diet? There are so many different interpretations of healthy diets. My whole blog, pretty much, is about trying to save money while eating what I consider to be a healthy diet. If you look on the tags on the right, clicking on frugal strategies, you should get my tips for that. But my biggest tips are shopping on sale and stockpiling, bulk buying, shopping in season, buying from the reduced rack, and making everything from scratch- in super short.

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  2. That is always the challenge-cheap & healthy! Sometimes I make fried rice from leftover rice. Gluten-free oatmeal, buckwheat pancakes, corn bread w/ syrup, and grits have been some other thrifty stand-by's. I like the sound of this recipe, but have been avoiding sugars- maybe I can make it sugar free - I do have some green buckwheat!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know how this would taste without any sweeteners- do you use any sweeteners?

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