Homemade Granola

Hidden in my pantry were all of the ingredients needed to make granola. The only thing I needed was the recipe to put it all together. Even after watching granola and granola bars being made on Food Network, I still did not have the courage to actually make it myself. I think to be honest, I had no interest in eating it- possibly because it is so healthy! I could hide no more, though. Yesterday, my hubby suggests we make granola together. We pretty much followed Alton Brown's recipe, with a few alterations.

3 cups rolling oats

1/3 cup cashews, chopped

1/3 cup almonds, chopped

1/3 cup roasted sunflower seeds

1/3 cup roasted and hulled pumpkin seeds

3/4 cup shredded coconut

1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp brown sugar

1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp honey

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 tsp salt

3 cinnamon sticks

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

2. Combine the oats, nuts, seeds, brown sugar, cinnamon sticks and coconut in a bowl.

3. In another bowl, combine the salt, honey and oil. [To loosen the honey, we zapped it in the microwave for 10 seconds.]

4. Combine both mixtures and lay out onto two baking sheets. We placed both baking sheets on different racks.

5. Stir every 15 minutes so that the granola stays as loose as possible. [To make life easier, set your oven timer for every 15 minutes so that you do not forget all about it!]

6. Alton's recipe cooks slowly for 1 hour, 15 minutes. Our granola on the bottom rack cooked in 30 minutes while the top rack took about 45 minutes.

7. Let cool, remove the cinnamon sticks and store in airtight container. Once cool, you can also add 1 cup raisins. Enjoy for breakfast as cereal or with yogurt. I prefer my granola as a healthy snack.

The granola came out nice and toasted perfectly. The one thing B and I disagreed about was the raisins. He thought it added texture, while I'm not too fond of dried fruits.We will tweak the ingredients some more. Instead of whole cinnamon sticks, we will add 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder instead. Some other things we wanted to try were adding cardamom, walnuts and pecans.

Emeril has his own recipe, where he uses 1/4 cup unsalted butter in place of the vegetable oil. He also adds 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Those are a few other options to keep in mind for next time. This snack/cereal gets eaten FAST so I have a feeling I will be making it quite often.