I eat my homemade granola every day, except on those occasional brunches out with otoelbc or friends and family (Eggs Florentine, I love you). It is delicious and good looking and makes me feel virtuous.
Inspired by Navajo's question about breakfast choices in a New Day diary and by special request from the lovely and talented thankgodforairamerica, I'm going to publish my granola recipe and I hope you will also reveal your secret recipe. Making granola requires no advanced cooking skills and packaged nicely, is a wonderful gift. However, once you give it away, people will start telling you how good it was and how much they liked it and hint that it would be so nice to have more.
This is not like a commercial product. It is crunchy, but not in clusters. The recipe has no added fats and I think the crunchy lumps require oils and possibly pressure to stick together.
Fine print: this is not for diabetics. There is sugar, honey and dried fruit. I have never tried to use any of the heat resistant sugar substitutes. If anyone tries it and is successful, please let me know how you did it and what quantities you used. It is not vegan because honey, but you can leave that out and increase (or not) the sugar.
6 cups old fashioned oats
8 ounces sliced almonds
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon vanilla
8 ounces dried blueberries.
Heat oven to 350.
Mix together oats, almonds, cinnamon, salt, brown sugar. Pour honey into glass measuring cup and heat in microwave until bubbling or pour into small pot and heat on stove. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Stand back: it will spit.
Scrape honey out of cup and into oat mixture and combine immediately. I use a silicone spatula because otherwise it sticks to anything else. Spread granola into jellyroll pan and bake for 30-40 minutes depending on how brown and crunchy you like it, stirring every 10 minutes.
Stir occasionally while cooling, then mix in blueberries. Cool completely, then store in an airtight container. Kept in the refrigerator, it will last a long time.
You can use any kind of nuts you like or leave them out and adjust the amount of oats. You can add more or less sugar. Any kind of dried fruit will work or leave it out. I don't like coconut very much and think it just adds a lot of saturated fat, but add it you like. Added oils are really not necessary, if you bake this long enough it gets nice and crunchy without any.