Granola for Me, Granola for You, Granola with Fiber Makes You Go P@@

Teehee.

Do you eat breakfast? You do? Good for you! Gets your metabolism going and whatnot. You don't? Well perhaps you'll be inspired by the granola recipe in this post.

Kevin and I were blazing through boxes of cereal--it was one of the banes of my grocery shopping experience.  Plus, the cereals became quite monotonous after a while, and I wanted to change things up a bit.  Oh yeah, party in this household!!! Different breakfast!!!

I picked up some granola from the farmers' market that I loved--just a bare touch of sweetness, and loads of nuts and grains and other things that made it seem oh so wholesome.  One bag for $5 lasted me about 3 days. Yeah. Expensive.

So, partly inspired by a friend who makes her own granola, I took my cosmic cues and decided to whip up a batch.

I found this Power Granola from Cooking Light.  I like that it doesn't add as much oil or honey as other recipes because it dilutes those ingredients with water, but that the method doesn't affect the flavor.  The original recipe uses orange juice but I just use all water to make it easier.  I also double the original recipe and cut down on the amount of sweetener.  You can use whatever dried fruits or nuts that you want.  Also, the amounts are somewhat approximate--I buy the ingredients from the bulk section so I'm always eyeballing the amounts.

Adapted from Cooking Light

Power Granola

• 2/3 cup water
• 1/2 cup honey (this makes the granola barely sweet--if you like it a bit sweeter, obviously add more)
• 4 teaspoons canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional; I almost always forget this)
• 4 cups regular oats (as in, not quick-cooking)
• 2/3 cup ground flaxseed (optional; I buy Anson Mills pre-ground flaxseed)
• 1/3 cup raw wheat germ (optional; I used this a couple of times)
• 1/2 cup chopped slivered almonds (or chopped walnuts, pecans, or whatever nut or combo you like)
• 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon (or you could try ground cardamom)
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt (less if using table salt)
• Cooking spray
• 2/3 to 1 cup dried cranberries, raisins, and/or other dried fruit

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. 

In a small saucepan set over medium low heat, combine the water and honey.  Stir until honey loosens and combines with the water, just takes a minute or two (you could probably also do this without heating, I just did it because of the original recipe, but I think the heat is more to melt the brown sugar, which I haven't been using, and I love run-on clauses).  Stir in the oil.

In a large bowl, combine the oats, flaxseed, wheat germ, almonds, cinnamon and salt.

Realize you forgot the pumpkin seeds.  Okay add those, too. Leave out the fruit for now, because you don't want to be roasting those.

Pour in the water-honey mixture.

Stir to combine well and make sure the granola is coated with the honey mixture.  Spread granola over two baking sheets that have been doused with cooking spray.  Place sheets in preheated oven.  After 10 minutes, rotate the sheets and mix around the granola.  Bake for another 5-10 minutes (undercooked is better than burnt).

After removing the sheets from the oven, mix in the dried fruit.

Because of the nuts or something, I store the granola is a gallon sized zipper bag in the refrigerator--the first time I didn't and I think the nuts started to go rancid. I admit, I ate it anyway.

I eat this yummy stuff with some milk in the mornings. I feel so *crunchy*. 

Ta-da!