Homemade Granola

I love Cooking Thin with Chef Kathleen and use it often. She has such great commonsense wisdom and it is funny to boot! I linked her website as she has good recipes. Buy her book if you want a good healthy cookbook! She has a new one that looks great too!

(if you click on the title Homemade Granola, it will take you to her website, she has recipes there too)

I use her crisp recipe all the time (but I don't use rhubarb, I use frozen mixed berries). If you eat a good healthy cereal for breakfast, pour the extra that is always left over into some oatmeal and keep on hand for crisp toppings. Even if you don't eat healthy cereals, the leftover sugar can flavor a crisp. I always use less sugar than the recipe call for.

We had lots of oatmeal, so I made granola today from her cookbook. As always, items in red you can buy at Costco.

1 1/2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar (I like it clumpier)
1/2 cup water
4 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. salt
8 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups chopped pecans, walnuts or slivered almonds (I chop whole almonds and use all 3)*
Dried fruit (Craisins)

Preheat oven to 275. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside. Combine brown sugar and water in a 4-cup microwave proof glass measuring cup or bowl. No smaller-it could boil over. Place in microwave on high for 5 minutes and cook until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from microwave; add vanilla extract and salt. Stir to combine until salt dissolves. Place oats and nuts in a bowl and pour brown sugar syrup over them. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Spread mixture on cookie sheets and bake 45-60 minutes, or until golden and crunchy. When mixture comes out of oven, it is still pliable. Mix in dried fruit at this time. When granola is completely cooled, store in an airtight container.

Notes: Make sure to clump the granola with your hands before putting in the oven (I forgot to last time). I have read other recipes where replacing some brown sugar with honey can help make it clumpy. Either way, this makes a lot of granola, and it is good and healthy. This next time, I think I am replacing one cup of oats with one cup of Fiber One. That will add 28 grams of fiber to the granola.

* We keep the bags of raw pecans, raw almonds and raw walnuts from Kirkland Signature in the bottom of our fridge. I posted a fridge picture on my first blog!
http://i-love-costco.blogspot.com/2006/09/welcome-to-my-first-blog_15.html