Thanksgiving Granola with Pumpkin

Happy Turkey Day everyone!  The Thanksgiving long weekend always means a traditional turkey dinner with Mike's family and a very non-traditional feast with my family.  But good food is good food and I'm very grateful for it all.  In fact, I am quite happy to have the mix because otherwise the second dinner would just be a rerun airing too soon after the show.

My family celebrates Thanksgiving and Christmas in true Chinese fashion - with a potpourri of your favourite dishes (all delectable but in no way related) and enough food to pack lunches for a week.   On Saturday night my aunt made turkey for her first time.  I would have never guessed it.  The turkey was yummy...as were the grilled vegetables with mustard dressing, the crispy shrimp pancakes, the smoked salmon with red onion, my mom's signature steamed sticky rice with dried shrimp and Chinese sausage.  And just when I started to dream of elastic waistbands my aunt handed me a steaming bowl of pho with beef brisket and coriander.  Heaven.

Now for the traditional.  I never had a real traditional Thanksgiving dinner until meeting Mike.  His mother makes wonderful turkey and in just a fraction of the regular time because of their convection roast oven.   For the 14-15 lb turkey we had last night it took less than 3 1/2 hours in the oven.  I always enjoy the turkey, the stuffing, the turnips and mashed potatoes.  Dill pickles and cranberry sauce add a pop of colour and flavour.  And then dessert.  Mmm pumpkin pie. My very first slice of pumpkin pie ever must have been made by Mike's grandmother Joan.  Her pies are superb, mostly because of the incredibly flaky pastry.  Last night's pumpkin pie had a pretty braided crust and was delicious as always.  Lucky us - we got to take the other half home.

The only baking I got around to this long weekend was a pumpkin granola using a recipe from Looneyspoons, my go-to book for cooking these days.  It seemed appropriate for autumn.  Unfortunately the end product didn't quite live up to what I had envisioned after smelling the pre-bake mixture.

I didn't follow the recipe to a tee...yes, perhaps that's why it didn't turn out properly but I swear I thought it was close enough.  I figured I couldn't really go wrong with this mix of ingredients: rolled oats, shredded coconut, cinnamon, almonds, pistachios, raisins, ground flaxseed, honey, butter, mashed pumpkin, and vanilla.  

unsalted pistachios

Actually the recipe called for almonds or pistachios but I used both and just made sure the combined amount came out to what was specified in the recipe.  I didn't have chocolate chips on me, added pepitas (pumpkin seed) which weren't called for...and surprisingly I couldn't get dried cranberries at the grocery store so I substituted with raisins instead.  See? No major changes.

pepitas

The recipe specifically says not to use pumpkin pie filling but canned mash pumpkin so this is the kind I picked up from the baking aisle.   I used a third of a cup with honey, vanilla, and melted butter to create the ooey-gluey goodness which should have held the granola together.

Next step: mix, mix, mix!

While the oven was preheating I remembered I still needed parchment paper so I ran out to the corner store but found only aluminum foil or wax paper on the shelf.  Wax paper...parchment paper, same thing right? I grabbed the wax paper and headed home. Mike was skeptical.  I was getting out the baking dish when Mike read aloud from a Googled webpage that people who have used wax paper instead of parchment paper were often met with a burning smell halfway through baking their cookies.  Ok, I was convinced...better stick with the aluminum foil.

After 25 min in the oven at 350 degF the granola smelled divine thanks to the coconut, pumpkin and cinnamon.  And the granola actually tasted quite good but the main issue I had with it was the texture.  I was hoping for something crisp...brittle almost.  Instead it didn't hold together very well and felt a tad on the sweaty side.  Clearly there was a problem with my ratios of fruits to nuts to oats.  Or was it the missing chocolate which would have melted throughout the granola? Or did it not finish cooling before I sliced into it?  Too many variables.  Now I'll actually have to go back and follow the exact original recipe to find out where I went wrong.  I'll be sure to share the secret...but in the meantime let me just pop a few more of these granola crumbs :)