Awesome Healthy Granola

I guess Sunday has become my experimental cooking day. I still cook dinner every night but I tend to go a little overboard on Sunday’s. This past Sunday I made homemade vegetable stock, homemade marinara, homemade crackers and homemade granola. They all turned out well but the granola was the best. On top of it being amazing it was also super easy and it will last forever. This recipe (like many others) is from Mark Bittman’s Food Matters.

I made a half batch of this recipe, leaving out the cinnamon and coconut b/c I just don’t like cinnamon and coconut. I also left out the salt.

You will need:

6 cups rolled oats (not the instant kind)
2 cups mixed nuts and seeds: sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, chopped walnuts, pecans, almonds or cashews ( I used chopped walnuts, sliced almonds and sesame seeds)
1 cup dried unsweetened shredded coconut, optional
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or to taste
Dash salt
1/2 to 1 cup honey or maple syrup, or to taste ( I used ½ cups of maple syrup)
1 cup raisins or chopped dried fruit, optional

How to prepare:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, combine oats, nuts and seeds, coconut, cinnamon, salt and sweetener. Place on a sheet pan and put in oven. Bake for 30 minutes or a little longer, stirring occasionally. Mixture should brown evenly; the browner it gets without burning, the crunchier the granola will be.

Personally I had to be careful on this step. Our oven does not heat evenly and it tends to cook things very fast. I took the mixture out of the oven after about 15 minutes to stir and to make sure it wasn’t burning. After an additional 10 minutes I decided it was done. Just keep an eye on it because the last thing you want is burnt nuts! =)

2. After you have decided its done remove it from the oven and add raisins or dried fruit. Cool on a rack, stirring once in a while until granola reaches room temperature. Transfer to a sealed container and store in refrigerator.

And that’s it. Super simple and extremely good.