almond butter

A few days ago Marnely tweeted that she was eating granola instead of Nutella. The first thing that came to my mind was “why can’t it be both?” You may think that adding Nutella to granola is crazy, but I often add nut butters to granola to help it “clump” together. I saw no reason why Nutella couldn’t do the same thing.

At first I was going to just use Nutella and not any other nut butters. I changed my mind because of all the sugar in Nutella. A variety of sugars gives the best consistency to granola, and if I went with all Nutella I wouldn’t be able to add more sugars. Well, I could.. but then I couldn’t even pretend that it was healthy. If you make your own hazelnut chocolate spread you could probably use just that without the granola becoming overly sweet. I used coconut sugar for the same reason, it’s not as sweet as regular granulated sugar. If you don’t have any on hand feel free to use regular sugar.

My little experiment worked out really well. The granola tastes like granola, but with just a hint of Nutella in the background. The dried cherries gave it a really nice burst of tartness too. I ate some with milk tonight and it was like having Nutella cereal. So good!

Nutella Granola

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup puffed millet (or puffed cereal of your choice, I like millet because its small)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 tbs butter
1/4 cup Nutella
1/4 cup almond butter
1/4 cup coconut sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup almonds, chopped
1/2 cup dried sour cherries

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside.
In a large bowl, mix the oats, millet, cinnamon and salt together. Set aside.
In a small sauce pan, heat the butter, Nutella, and almond butter. Stir until they are well combined and quite liquid. Remove from the heat and add the sugar and maple syrup. (This mixture tastes really good, by the way)
Pour the butter mixture into the oat mixture. Stir until the oats are well coated.
Pour the oat mixture out onto the prepared baking sheet in an even layer.
Bake for 20 minutes, then stir and add the almonds. Bake for 20 minutes more.
Let cool, then stir in the dried cherries.

Enjoy!

I’m moving in two weeks. I thought that once I had sold the condo my stress level would go back to normal, but that hasn’t been the case. I’m a giant ball of nerves right now. I haven’t been sleeping well, and my eating habits have been less than ideal. I have a feeling I won’t really relax until all the papers are signed. Until then, I think the best I can do is watch what I eat, and try and get as much sleep as I can.

This is an attempt at healthy eating. It’s nothing special, just some toast with almond butter, apple slices and a drizzle of honey, but it’s better for me than eating the entire box of chocolates I was actually craving. I don’t think I’ll be able to post much in the next couple of weeks. My days are filled with work, organizing, and packing. There’s not much time to cook, and there’s no space for pictures. Once I’m settled in I’ll be back with some new posts.

In the mean time, if anyone wants to do a guest post let me know!