Zero Food Waste Challenge: soaked granola

Over at Penniless Parenting, Penny has set a Zero Food Waste Challenge and has given out an invite to everyone to join in.

She recently made a good looking banana peel chutney....wow....that to me is the epitome of non-wastage of food.

It made me think about what I do with leftovers and the throw away bits, apart from feed them to my worm farm of course.

One thing I have figured out what to with is left-over breakfasts.

I don't give my kids processed breakfast cereals, I'm more of a give 'em eggs, fruit, nuts, smoothies, yoghurt type of gal.

BUT, they do like cereal, in a bowl, covered with milk (because I did used to give them this sometimes....the less sugared varieties...but you'd be darn surprised to find out how much sugar the less-sugared varieties actually contain, among other undesirable things. Or maybe not so surprised).

So now, when they want cereal, I've got them used to eating plain oats.

Well, soaked oats actually, as per Weston A. Price. Sometimes they eat them soaked and cold, sometimes they request porridge.

Now, I'm not such a fan of eating cold soaked oats, or porridge for that matter but the kids think they're just fine, and that's what matters at breakfast time here.

As for the leftovers, I'm loath to throw them out as I buy organic oats in bulk and organic raw milk, and those little suckers are just a wee bit exxcy. To make myself feel like I'm getting the most bang from my buck, I scrap any left over porridge and pour any left over oats-in-milk into small containers and stash them in the freezer.

Like this.

Looks good, right? Kinda like pre-digested, um, oats. Erk.

When I have a decent amount (or when I need to free up some freezer space or containers) I make this soaked granola. I won't write it out here, because CheeseSlave has written it up beautifully, instructions and all.

I do make a couple of changes though and over all, the recipe is very forgiving with exact quantities.

One change is the amount of sweetener.....1/4 cup honey or maple syrup PLUS 1/4 cup rapadura is rather sweet. But folks have different levels of enjoyment when it comes to sweetening, so go with what you prefer. I use the honey/maple syrup with maybe a tablespoon or so of rapadura, and really only because I enjoy the brown sugar taste of rapadura.

I don't usually have that much in the way of soaked seeds and nuts so I never put in two cups, I just up the amount of oats and maybe throw in some flax seeds.

Also, because of the fact I'm using un-measured left over amounts of oats (and milk, which is not in the recipe) mine is sometimes wetter so I'll stir in more coconut or oats. I did say the recipe is forgiving of changes, right?

Mmm mmmm, here it is, the picture courtesy of CheeseSlave:

It's good for snacking on, as well as dousing in milk and scooping up with a spoon.

Yum yum!