Peanut butter granola (recipe)

Hey peeps

While we were away, one morning I had some lovely home-made granola for breakfast, and it reminded me how delicious it can be. I decided to make my own- I started with a recipe from Sweet Vegan , but I changed it rather a lot (getting rid of the oil and brown sugar and replacing them with pb and grape juice, swapping in brown rice syrup for agave, changing the amounts of nuts and fruit). It is not perfect, but it is a good start, and very delicious.

First up- the ingredients:

Wet ingredients:

60g peanut butter

50ml grape juice

50ml brown rice syrup (or agave/ honey)

1 tsp vanilla

Gently heat these together in a pan- keep stirring until it all comes together. While this is going, pre-heat the oven to 150C.

Dry ingredients:

320g oats (I used the Sainsbury’s porridge mix which had oats, dried apple, cinnamon and raisins in, but plain oats would be fine).

45g coconut

100g almonds

50g brazil nuts

1 tsp cinnamon

Mix these together in a bowl, and then pour over the warm mixture.

Mix mix mix. I think next time I might make a little more of the wet mixture, as it was hard to coat all the oats. Then pour onto a tray, and bake for around 40 mins. Every 10/15 mins I got the tray out and shifted it all around so it would cook evenly.

When it is baked, add in some raisins (about 100g), then push the granola to the side of the tray so it hardens and cools into clumps.

This is lovely 🙂 The recipes makes a big tub too, so I shall be kept going for a while 🙂

Aside from that, I have been trying to stay indoors! I was meant to do a 6 mile run on Monday (although looking at my plan, I think that was a typo as I only did my first 6 mile one on Sunday)- I had to be back for the shopping to be delivered, so I did a short 3.2 miler (also glad of that because it was raining lightly when I left, but pretty heavy by the time I got home). I felt like I was going at a snail’s pace, but I did manage to keep a good pace- starting at about 10.40 per mile, and ending at 10.20. I have no idea how I am managing this at the moment but I seem to speed up towards the end of each run, and I hope I can continue it.

Today has been a lovely rest day- it is tipping it down with rain, so I am quite glad to be out of it (I feel sorry for the Sweatshop people as they are starting the beginners running today). I am making some sweet potato and kidney bean burgers instead.

The other day I was reading a very interesting article at No Meat Athlete– it was about the 10% rule when running. I had always heard this rule, but not really thought about it in depth. Anyway, it is worth a read I think. I think all the plans I have followed have not really followed the 10% rule. I suppose people should not increase mileage too dramatically (if you use km, do you say increase your kilometerage?) so that helps people to be mindful of it, but it is not actually that practical.

Just a thought anyway.

Bye 🙂