Quinoa Granola by Donna Hay

In April I wrote about my amazing experience in Venice, where I attended Meeta K. Wolff’s and  Jeanne Horak-Druiff’s Food Photography & Styling course. As a gift we got the brand new cookbook by Donna Hay called „Fresh and Light“. If you know the Donna Hay cookbooks you know that all the food photos in her books are very bright and light. In this one the photographer and the stylist focused even more on the lightness of the pictures, which at the same time adds lightness to the food. All the dishes are on a white plate, with a white background and on white napkins.

I have been a big fan of Donna Hay cookbooks since about 6 years or so. Back then I did an internship in Sydney/Australia. Donna Hay is Australian and so my friend Alicia, with whom I stayed during that time, had a lot of her cookbooks at home and we often cooked her recipes. I have always been impressed by the conceptual design of her books. During that time I was far away from my own food blog and taking food photos myself. I just loved flicking through her books.

After giving us the cookbook at the Workshop, Meeta announced a competition for all the workshop participants, which comprehend cooking one of the dishes out of the new cookbook and also taking a nice picture of it. Of course I wanted to join the competition. So this is my result.

I have been reading about Granola all the time lately – in my eyes it kind of got a little hype. But I think it’s just new to me and maybe to some other Austrians.. in America and also Australia (where Donna Hay is from) this is a common thing to have in the morning. There is the odd muesli that we all know and maybe have for breakfast and there is Granola. It’s definitely the yummier version of it. Maybe not as healthy as the plain grains in the morning but still healthy and good for us. Granola is also very good as a snack in between.

After baking it in the oven you can put it in a glass and keep it for a while. The great thing about the Donna Hay Granola version is that it is gluten-free. Instead of using normal oats she uses white quinoa. I tried the recipe with red quinoa and of course it also tasted delicious. This particular granola is vegan but instead of using maple syrup you can also use the same amount of honey. I used corn oil for the granola but I am sure that coconut oil would taste great too. I am happy that I finally stumbled on this recipe.