What granola is, where it came from, how to make it

All right. So, today you have been pestering me to make granola. Granola for so long, which comes from uh the word granula because it's like a granular food, little bits of grains and other seeds, right? Okay. So, the basic principle of like your modern standard granula is it's like seven or eight parts grains. Okay. Of that a majority is generally oats. Okay. And then it's like one part butter or other fat and then one part sugar sweetener of your of your of your choice. Yeah. Butter sugar can't be beat. Okay. I'm going to melt a stick of butter which will be half. So our part our part is going to be a half cup. Stick of butter is half a cup of butter. Let's get you measuring out a half cup of brown sugar. And you could use like you know any kind of syrup. People use maple syrup, agave syrup or you know whatever. It just has to be sweet. And for the fat, like people use like coconut oil, you know, anything. And this is, of course, the binder. This is what makes all of the little bits of grain stick together. Um, I suppose the unfortunate truth is that granola is basically like a cookie crumble. Granola is nutritious, but it is not a diet food. It's not even really a health food. But if you're looking to add some fiber and some protein, this is a good way to do it. Yeah. Also get some nice butter and sugar in your diet, you know. So again, it's like seven to eight parts grains of various kinds. And of that, you want the majority to be your rolled oats, which are here. Go ahead and start scooping some of those out. So what do you think? Like five of these and then mix all the rest of the stuff. Yeah. And we can always like add more. All right. I'm going to I have whole pecans, so I'm going to chop them up a little bit. Oh, okay. Sure. Okay. So, that's about Yeah. For situational awareness, I'd go ahead and measure that. Not that this is like an exact science. A half a cup. And then if I put flax seeds and chia seeds in here with these, then we'll measure it, right? Cuz this is the seventh cup. And oh, hello. And lastly, um, shredded unsweetened coconut because while this is not a health food, there's just no need for the extra sugar in a sweetened coconut. Also, it's really sticky when it's sweetened. Okay. And then for spices, uh I'm going to guess maybe like a teaspoon of cinnamon or this is pumpkin spice, which has ginger and stuff in it. Vanilla, very popular in today's granula. Uh just do a little gug. Yeah, a little glug. I'm going to guess like maybe half a teaspoon of salt. Uh I'll actually go cuz we had salted butter in here. So, we'll just go easy on it. So, now we'll just stir it and then taste it and then we can adjust. Sounds great. So, why do you like granola, honey? Um, well, because I like yogurt and it's really good for me, but I do not love just the texture of yogurt by itself. Oh, you need something to break it up. Yeah. So, I always put granola in it. And um yeah, our oldest kid says that things like yogurt and mashed potatoes make his uh throat feel stuffed up, which I totally get. And uh yeah, I do it with um oatmeal, too. I like to put granola in my oatmeal. All right. What do you think of that? Ooh, that's really good. Mhm. That is really good. You can kind of gauge whether you have the proportions right by seeing if it'll clump a little bit. So, pick up a little bit and see if it'll like clump in your hand. And it shouldn't clump a lot, right? It should just clump a little. And that looks good to me. Yeah. Okay. So, that was seven parts dry. Is that what we said? Yeah. Yeah. So, I would suggest using the uh parchment paper over there. Otherwise, I think this is going to stick real bad. Okay. Let me bake it. I mean, you could spray the pan, right? Yeah, I know, but there's enough fat in already. See, the difference between a professional such as myself as an amateur such as you is that I dump things with the bowl facing the camera. Some of us are just trying to live our lives out here. I know. I'm so sorry. Now, do I want to like press it a little bit? Yeah. Well, not really. You just want to keep it all together, but get it, you know, pretty thin so that it cooks fast enough. Yeah. Okay. And then we'll just break it up into chunks later. Got it. That looks perfect to me. Oh, don't burn your nose, dog. Gosh. Okay. So, we're going to bake at uh 300 F. Sort of low and slow convection if you have it to help it dry out cuz it's more of a a drying than a baking. And let it be known that we do wash our produce in this house. I just don't always like show the washing of the produce or the hands. I wash my hands so many times every time I make a video. I You wouldn't want to see it every time. I'm like, "Oh, look at all those beneficial phytochemicals. Nourish your body. Nourish your skin. Am I right?" Or so would be said by Geology, the sponsor of this video. Oo, love the headband for my skincare routine. Like a professional, like the girlies do. So, Geology makes uh dermatologist skin care customized for your particular needs. I I filled out their little quiz online, told them that uh you know, I'm I'm old. I don't really have acne that much anymore, but I I still would like to look less old. I'm obviously not very good at this, so I really appreciate that it says like step one on the bottle. And this is just the face wash. I'm just supposed to wash my face with it first. Step two is the eye cream there. And what is the proper way to do this? All right. You want to use your ring finger cuz it's gentler. I can't make it stick out by itself. So, just put your hand. I know you can find your way there. And why do you want a specific cream for the area under the eyes? Well, the skin under your eyes is thinner. And so, you don't want anything too heavy because then you can end up with millia, which is like little bumps, white bumps. Gross. Step three is going to be the the morning cream here, which uh you know has a sunscreen in it, which is something you've been on me for a long time about being more serious. How much do you think? Uh more than that. Oh, okay. into your beard, into your eyebrows, forehead. This also has hyaluronic acid and argan oil, which is nice and hydrating. Now, I'm not saying that like my marriage is the result of my beautiful skin, but um it has been rather successful, both the marriage and the skin. So, um with that in mind, Geology is offering you 70% off of your introductory trial set. 70% off with my link in the description. Uh, also 50% off add-ons that you can tack on to your trial set there. So 70% off your trial set with my link in the description. Thank you, Geology. So I'm always looking for ways to have better nutrition, but so much health food content is diet food content. And so like I don't want to sub artificial sweeteners and I don't want to use cottage cheese or whatever. I just want it to have the nutritional component I want and I want it to taste good. And so this is a meal that does that. It's a little bit more high calorie than some people might want. I don't care cuz it tastes good and I'm getting all that vitamin C and fiber. All righty. So you can stir it halfway through if you want to. Um didn't stir it at all. And like if I touch it like I can feel that it's firming up but it's still going to fall apart. Um that's because it hasn't cooled yet. So it's been in there about an hour. I'm going to call this done. There we go. And the advantage of doing it on the parchment like that is that you can just take it straight off. It'll cool faster. And you know, you saw how it kind of moved there. Um it's going to firm up as it cools. Just let it sit. And then just like No, I here. Okay. What are you going to do? You get the other side. I'll do the other side. Yes. Cuz otherwise it's just going to go everywhere. So you grab the two corners. Bowl goes there. Yeah. There we go. See, teamwork makes There you go. Cool. You can throw the chunks in the bowl or in your mouth. Oh man, that's real good. All right, so these big chunkeroos, just smash them. I'm going to use this bowl that my dad, he retired and became a potter and he made this bowl. M beautiful. I have some Greek yogurt. It's kind of funny that, you know, granola is what it is today when one considers that historically, you know, it was born uh in the late 19th century America in the whole like health spa movement like John Caleb Jackson in upstate New York and then uh what's his name? Kellogg over in Michigan. Um, and it was like a way to try to get people to eat grains to keep them from eating meat based upon like 19th century pseudoscientific vitalism, right? Which is not to say there aren't good reasons to not eat meat. There are, but their reasons were bad. Like, so now it's kind of funny cuz like granola, it's basically like the 19th century equivalent of like raw milk and beef tallow, you know, a a pseudoscientific health food, but delicious. Delicious. And raw milk can kill you. This probably not. This is I am so hungry right now, too. This is great. Take some granola and just put that on the top there. Oh, yeah. Admittedly, it's a dessert granola. Mhm. Could go lighter on the sugar if you want. Why would you want that?