Today we celebrate the Martyrdom of John the Baptist . The saint who was blessed to not only be related to our Lord Jesus but to be able to baptize Him as well! One of the things St. John the Baptist was famous for was his diet. While I do not recommend a diet of locusts and honey, I will offer you this family friendly breakfast you can have in his honor!
It is very simple to make and yummy! If you do not have agave nectar you can substitute 1/3 cup of brown sugar. Also, if you can, get really good honey. Blackberry honey is quite divine!
Amy Caroline’s Honey Granola
· 4 cups oatmeal (quick is usually best, but since I rarely buy that stuff you can use the other kind)
· 1 cup to 1 ½ cups chopped nuts (any you love – I use a mixture of walnuts, pecans, almonds and sunflower seeds)
· ¼ cup vegetable oil
· ¼ cup agave nectar
· approximately ¼ cup good honey
· 1 cup raisins
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix oats and chopped nuts in bowl. Pour oil over it and toss. Then add agave and mix. Then honey. I am not sure on this measurement. I usually just drizzle it all over until I think, “Oh yummy!” Mix in the honey. The honey will make clusters, which is very yummy, but you may wan to break them up a little with your hands. Smooth this out on a LARGE foil covered baking pan. This makes a lot of granola, so if you don’t have a big pan you can make two batches. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until it start to turn golden brown, especially along the edges.
While this is baking pour raisins (you can definitely do more than 1 cup and you can add other dry fruit too) into the bottom of a LARGE bowl. When the oats are done pour them on top of the raisins. Mix nicely and let sit for just a few minutes. This will soften the raisins and make them oh so nice.
You can serve this warm or put in a big ol’ storage bag and serve the next day. Not sure how long it will last in storage. It has never lasted more than a day around here… if even a meal!
Hope you all like it!
Jessica, I missed this recipe yesterday for the celebration of the the Martyrdom of John the Baptist but I will do this recipe for the blackberry honey, I love it. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHope you like it!
ReplyDeleteThe recipe for honey granola sounds tasty -- but then anything with honey and granola would be a hit with me. As an amateur botanist, I'd like to pass along an important insight into the "locust and honey diet" of John the Baptist. In modern America, we associate the word locust with a grasshopper-type insect. Since I was a kid, the idea of eating locusts, with or without honey, always seemed pretty gross. But in my reading, I've come to find that locust may actually refer to the locust tree, which grows both in the Mideast and North America. Locust trees produce a bean-like pod, 6-8 inches long. The beans inside these pods are high in nutrition, especially protein. They make great fodder for livestock, and although they're not especially tasty, human beings have been known to survive on them. As such, they might appeal to a saintly and ascetic hermit like St. John the Baptist. And however bland these tree-grown beans might be, I think they'd go down much easier than a wriggling grasshopper!
ReplyDelete