I made homemade granola for the first time the other night! I never knew how easy it is to make! We had some recently at our friends Mark and Jen’s house - some granola Mark had gotten as a Christmas treat from one of his students. It inspired me to try myself. I took a recipe I found online and combined it (believe it or not) with part of Phil’s Oatmeal Buddy recipe. Here’s what I came up with:
4 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (optional)1/2 cup 2 T. dried apricots (I recently reduced the amount of dried fruit)1/2 cup 2 T. cup dried cranberries1/2 cup 2 T. cup dried cherries
1/4 t. salt
1/8 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. cinnamon
4 T. butter
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar1 t. vanilla (since this original post, I’ve cut this out)
Mix oats, pecans, dried fruit, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar, and honey over medium heat till butter melts and mixture begins to boil. Add vanilla. Remove from heat. Pour butter over oats mixture mixing till well-coated. Transfer to a greased 12X18 9X6* jelly roll pan and press oats evenly. Bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees (or till golden brown). Let cool, then break into pieces.
It’s that easy! It’s great as just a dry snack or with milk for cereal (of course, I like to splash a little cream in mine! yum!). So yummy and so easy. Give it a try!
*I’ve made this recipe several times since this original post and realized it needed some adjustments. I noted the changes in parenthesis by each adjusted ingredient. One other adjustment I made was also to use a smaller jelly roll pan so as to make the mixture thicker - about the thickness of a granola bar. We preferred this as it made the pieces of granola larger and nicer for snacking.
