Granola, anyone?

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just want something really crunchy.  I have always loved a good granola -as snacks, toppings or cereal with milk.

When we discovered one of our sons is severely allergic to peanuts, that ruled out almost any granola we checked out in stores. If the granola didn’t actually have peanuts as an ingredient, it was still listed as manufactured on machinery of products with peanuts, and therefor may contain traces of peanuts. (In other words, it may be contaminated with peanuts, and pose a life-threatening danger for our boy.)

So it was time to start making our own granola, to be sure it was peanut-free, and safe. Someone passed on this recipe to us, with a batch of some already made, that was SO good.  We made some today, so I thought I’d take step-by-step photos along the way, and post a how-to for anyone who wants some good granola on hand sometime soon!  Or, to just put it in your stack of snack-recipes for some other time.

Participating Ingredients

The measurements below are doubled from our original recipe, so should yield 12 servings.  Feel free to halve the amounts, if you’d only like to yield 6 servings.

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

You will need:

• 6 cups Rolled Oats
• 1-1/2  cups Shredded Sweet Coconut
• 3/4 cup Dark Brown Sugar
• 3/4 cup Honey or Maple Syrup
• 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1-1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1-2 cup Raisins
• (Optional additions:  1 cup Slivered Almonds and/or 1 cup Cashews.)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

In a large bowl, pour measured Oats.

Add Coconut.

Add Brown Sugar (slightly packed)

Mix up these dry ingredients all together, well.

~~~

In a separate bowl….

Pour measured Honey (or Maple Syrup if you prefer. Or 1/2 and 1/2?  Haven’t tried that yet.)

Add measured Vegetable Oil.

Add the Salt.

Stir together.

Pour Honey/Oil/Salt mixture into big bowl of dry ingredients, scraping remaining out of bowl as well.

(One might notice it’s not the same bowl we started with.  That one turned out to be not big enough.  I am not so good at guess-timating appropriate sized containers for the job.  You should see what I go through for after-dinner leftovers, before I have the right size container.  Ok…sorry to get into that.  I just knew someone really observant was going to pick right up on the bowl-switch thing. So I wanted to just ‘come clean’ up front, so to speak.)

So now the wet and dry ingredients are all in one big bowl.

Hand mix it all together well.  This is sticky and messy, but you can do it.  ; )

(Ummm. Please wash your hands first. )

Next…….

Spread it evenly onto baking sheets, and…..

Put them into your heated oven.

Set the timer for 15 minutes.

When the timer goes off…..

Remove each tray from the oven, and stir the granola well.  Be sure to spread it all evenly again in each pan, to achieve even color, and put them back into the oven, rotating if necessary.  (Our oven is wonky.  It’s necessary for us.)

Set timer again.

Mix again, and return to oven…..repeating.

This process is repeated into the granola has been in the oven for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, in 15 minute intervals.  Decide if it is toasty enough for you, before putting back into the oven for the 5th 15 minute bake.  Ours was in for  all of the time, and to be honest, I find it a little overdone.

Let cool a bit.  Then scrape all granola back into now clean big bowl.

Add raisins.

Mix them in well.

That’s it!!  Your granola is done.

Eat it plain as a snack, sprinkle on your yogurt or ice-cream, or try some as cereal with milk.

If you have any granola recipes to share, we’d love to try some others!! Please let us know, so you can send it to us. (Must be completely peanut-product free, please!)

ENJOY!!!