I have a thing against granola, I admit it. Granola has not been good to me, and apparently I carry a grudge. A grudge that dates back to the late 1970s.

When I was growing up, granola was just about the only cereal we ate. There were cooked cereals in the winter, and there might have been some Cheerios now and again, but mostly it was granola. With all those grains and nuts, it must be good for you.

It might not have been so bad, except I had chronic earaches every winter. This doesn’t have much to do with granola, but my doctor thought I might be allergic to milk and dairy products. So he took me off them. That meant no milk in my cereal bowl. My mom asked me what I wanted instead and I picked apple juice.

Can you imagine how sweet that was—raisin-laden granola with apple juice poured over it? Just thinking about it today, years later, my teeth ache.

Turns out I wasn’t allergic to milk, but the experience turned me off granola for life. I haven’t touched the stuff in years.

But this summer, up in Canada, my mom gave me a bag of granola that one of her students had made. It was nutty and slightly sweet and I found I liked it mixed into the yogurt and fruit I often eat for breakfast in the summer. A granola I like, imagine that.

Not long after, I stumbled across a granola recipe that looked interesting. Then I had a conversation with Megan Gordon, who runs Marge Bakery and makes and sells granola, in which she agreed with me that freshly made granola is a different beast entirely. So recently, on a Sunday when I had a long list of to-dos around the house, I decided to make granola.

Half an hour later (granola is fast and easy to make), the kitchen was flooded with the smell of toasty, roasty sweetness. It smelled like an oatmeal cookie, but nuttier. Like honey, but deeper. It was exactly what a lazy Sunday should smell like—the sweetness of comfort and home. This granola thing might be addictive, if for the smell alone.

The recipe I used comes from the Breakfast with a Blogger series that Leela Cyd Ross does on Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn. In it she asks different bloggers what they have for breakfast—it’s domestic voyeurism at its very best. This particular recipe comes from Roséline Lohr of This is Glamorous. The mixture is rich with pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and chia seeds (which I happen to have a large bag of and have few reasons to use). I added dried cranberry, because I don’t like raisins (another victim of my 70s/80s childhood), but you could add any mixture of fruit that you like.

Also, I added crystallized ginger, because it’s fall and we all need a little warming.

The final product is nutty and sweet with a bit of salty too. It has gorgeous ruby red and golden bits from the cranberries and ginger, and I have no problem admitting I ate a bowl of this for dinner, along with a side of simmered kabocha squash.

I have a feeling I’m going to be making granola regularly from here on out. I’m actually exited to go to bed tonight because I can wake up and have granola for breakfast. Who would have thought I’d become granola’s newest fan? My only problem now is that I’m out of milk.

What do you think—granola: friend or foe? Please discuss. Also, have you ever made your own?

Roséline Lohr’s Cranberry-Chia Granola on The Kitchn

• I added 1/3 cup crystalized ginger and used honey instead of agave.

• Next time I’ll use canola oil. rather than olive, and try maple syrup to sweeten.

Tea & Cookies

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