Raspberry Apple Goji Raw Granola Recipe

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Do you miss granola? Many of us have had to give up our breakfast cereal – sensitivities to sweeteners, gluten, or diary really put a cramp in one's breakfast style. Being sensitive to all three (like me!) made granola a huge challenge. Even raw oats don't agree with me very well!
First I switched to honey-only granola with rice milk, but after a year I realized I really did have more energy when I didn't consume store-bought rice milk or the honey-sweetened granola either.
When I discovered raw food I tried making my own from buckwheat and dried fruit along with home-made almond milk. I found that it took a lot of dried fruit to make the almond milk and buckwheat palatable to me, and overall felt heavy after consuming it. Besides, it took too much preparation time!
Years later I discovered that raw goat milk agreed very well with my body (even though pasteurized goat milk and cow milk both upset my stomach and give me acid reflux, gas, and fatigue). I found that I could consume as much as half a gallon a day without any negative side effects and felt just as good as I did on raw fruits and vegetables. I happily began including raw goat milk as a way to save time and money as well as a way to enjoy a wider variety of recipes.
To go with my raw goat milk, I now make granola as follows:

Raederle's Raspberry-Apple Granola

  • 2 medium-sized apples
  • 2 to 5 soaked dates (optional; include these if you like your granola very sweet)
  • 10 ounces of frozen raspberries (1 bag)
  • 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed*
  • 1 tablespoon ground chia seed*
  • 1 tablespoon ground sunflower seed*
  • 1 tablespoon ground sesame seed*
  • ½ cup frozen or fresh cranberries
  • ½ cup dried mulberries
  • ¼ cup dried goji berries
1. Remove cores from apples and pits from soaked dates. Keep the water you soaked the dates in to add sweetening to other foods. Date water is great to use when making home-made almond milk.
2. Add apples and dates to your food processor and pulse until both are in small chunks. This will take 13 to 20 pulses on a 12 or 14 cup food processor. (Click here for my appliance recommendations.)
3. Scrape down the sides of your food processor and then add frozen raspberries, seeds, cranberries and dried fruits.
4. Alternate pulsing with running your food processor and scraping down the sides until you have the seeds evenly spread out, the dried mulberries and goji berries somewhat broken up, and all of the raspberries and cranberries broken into at least halves. This should take two to three minutes in a good food processor.
5. Dollop, drop and spread mixture over two teflex dehydrator sheets (or parchment paper if you don't have teflex sheets). You want small clusters – not an even spread. An even-spread will make crackers, not granola! It is okay if some clusters are touching; clusters can be broken apart when you flip your granola or after it is done.
6. Turn your dehydrator to 150ºF for the first twenty minutes. Don't worry, the moisture will prevent the food from getting over 105º easily. Then turn it down to 130ºF for the next hour. Then 120ºF for the next hour**, and finally leave it on 110 or 115ºF from there. Before bed, be sure to flip the granola, or at least de-stick all portions from the teflex sheets so that the underside can dry.
7. Try to check on your granola a few times in the morning, starting when you first wake up. You want it to be obviously dry, but not so hard that it hurts to chew!
8. When your granola is done, store in a plastic baggie or in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. I keep mine in quart-sized mason jars on the counter beside the refrigerator where I make my granola.
9. Serve with raw goat milk or your choice of rice milk, almond milk, hazelnut milk, cashew milk, sunflower seed milk, or raw cow's milk. Also works well with raw, home-made yogurts and kefir!
*I keep all four of these seeds in my freezer pre-ground for use in a variety of recipes. These are useful to include in sweet smoothies for diabetics or people who are hypoglycemic. They are also good in salads to make the salad more filling and rich without using much or any oil.
**The reason for the higher temperatures at the beginning are to speed up the process of bringing the food actually up to 105ºF, making the food less likely to spoil before it dries, and also speeding the length of time it takes for the food to be ready to be flipped.
I hope you thoroughly enjoy this recipe! If you do, check out my nutritionally complete meal plans which include recipes, grocery lists and nutritional information for entire days and weeks, each day leading into the next with no wasted food, and no wasted effort!

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