Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookie Granola

Crunchy chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies- in granola form for breakfast. Or late last night when I just couldn’t help myself. (Was getting a head start on this morning’s breakfast, actually…).

This stuff is phenomenal. I don’t recall having ever loved granola so much- and it was so easy to make. I promise I will never give you complicated recipes on zimt.ca. I just don’t have time to have this happen.

Here we go:

700 g old-fashioned rolled oats (can use certified gluten-free. I used regular organic!)
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp Himalayan salt (or any good quality salt)
¼ tsp vanilla bean powder
40 g flaked coconut
1 Chocolate 70% bar (the chocolate really makes it. We did eat most of it without the chocolate but then we added it in as per Maple Spice’s recipe (you can also get the nutrition facts there). So brilliant, but obvious because it is chocolate.)

300 g coconut sugar
100 g water

Like this. Preheat your oven to 350 F and put some parchment paper on a baking sheet. Combine the first five ingredients (oats, cinnamon, salt, vanilla bean, and coconut), in a bowl.

Then, put your coconut sugar and your water, fresh from a spring and deposited by faeries, into a little pot and set to boil and stir quite a bit. Once it is boiling, reduce to simmer and stir often because the coconut sugar will stick to the sides of the pot. After 5 minutes of simmering, remove from all heat and then pour into your oat mixture. Stir stir stir until well combined and then spread on the parchment paper-ed sheet. Pop into the oven for 20

minutes. Clean up your kitchen and then take out of the oven and stir a bit. Pop back into the oven and vaccuum your house. After 20 minutes, remove from the oven and try not to eat it all yet- you aren’t finished.
Let it cool. Chop up your Chocolate 70% bar and mix in. Store in a cute mason jar!

And you can feel excellent eating it, because all of the ingredients are good for you. Here‘s a bit about why the raw chocolate is so good for you (scroll down to the nutrition section), but what about those oats…?

• Oats stabilize blood sugar & reduce risk of type 2 diabetes
  • oats are high in fibre and complex carbohydrates, which slow down the conversion into simple sugars. Oats, like chocolate, are high in magnesium, which support the body’s secretion of insulin and glucose.
• Oats remove your bad cholesterol without affecting your good cholesterol!
  • oats contain a fiber called beta-glucan, which are beneficial for reducing bad cholesterol
• Oats contain unique antioxidants that are beneficial for those with heart disease
  • avenathrimides, a unique antioxidant found in oatmeal, has been shown through a study at Tufts University to help prevent free radicals from damaging LDL cholesterol, which would therefore reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease
• Oats are naturally gluten-free
  • it is only during the processing of oats that there may be sone cross contamination with other grains that do contain gluten. On their own, though, oats are gluten free- perfect for those with gluten sensitivities (those with celiacs disease will do best by getting certified gluten free oats, like these)
• Oats enhance immune response to disease, due to their beta-gluten (a unique fibre found in oatmeal), which has been shown to help neutrophils travel to the site of infection quickly, and also aid in their eliminating bacteria found at the site.
• More good oat-related news on care2.com!

Happy Granola-Making/Eating =)

xo emma