Homemade Granola

 
 I make homemade granola bars but it never occurred to me to make homemade granola.  I decided to give it a try.  I looked up a recipe on allrecipes.com that sounded good and had a ton of great reviews, made my shopping list, and headed to my local Sprouts Farmer's Market (You could probably find the ingredients in Wal-Mart but I didn't want to take on the rows and rows of food searching, and plus, I wanted fresh not almost-rotten strawberries.  Hence, the Farmer's Market.  I think I fall in love with that place more every time I go.  Really, all it took was one sale on fresh asparagus at $1/lb. and I was hooked.  This time, the strawberries were on sale, so I loaded up for a day of making granola and strawberry jam.  But first, the granola: 

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups rolled oats
• 3/4 cup wheat germ
• 3/4 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
• 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup raisins or sweetened dried cranberries

NOTE:  Those are the ingredients for the original recipe.  However, I did not have walnuts and used 1/2 c. rice krispies cereal instead.  I also added 1/2 c. sweetened coconut because I like it.  Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly.  I found oat bran really easily at the farmer's market, it was in one of the many bins that are ready to be scooped from.  Mason jars work great to store your extra ingredients by the way.  And I don't know about your local store but the oat bran only came to 77 cents for about 2 cups so it's not going to break the bank.  

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (165 degrees C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment or aluminum foil.
2. Combine the oats, wheat germ, oat bran, sunflower seeds, almonds, pecans, and walnuts in a large bowl. 

1. 3.  Stir together the salt, brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, oil, cinnamon, and vanilla in a saucepan. 

1. 4.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, then pour over the dry ingredients, and stir to coat. Spread the mixture out evenly on the baking sheets.  HINT:  Don't turn on the heat until you have added all of your ingredients, you may end up burning the sugar by the time you add everything else! 

1. 5.  Bake in the preheated oven until crispy and toasted, about 20-25 minutes. Stir once halfway through. Cool, then stir in the raisins or cranberries before storing in an airtight container.

The pan that was on the top rack of my oven turned out a bit more crispy than the one on bottom so you may want to switch the pans up when you stir that way one pan isn't over exposed to the heat.  I added raisins to one of my pans- the one I plan on using for snacking and left the raisins out of my 2nd pan - the one I plan on using on top of yogurt.  Personal preference.  Either way, this stuff smells AMAZING in the oven and it tastes SO GOOD!  So much better than store bought granola AND cheaper.  It's a bit of an investment to buy all of the ingredients if you don't have the nuts and stuff but it makes a ton.  Totally worth it.  Go make some granola, it's super fast, not sticky or hard to manage, and really flexible for you to add ingredients you think would make it perfect for you.