I love homemade granola. It's such a great and healthier way to start the day. Granola just makes me think of good things, and smells AMAZING when it's baking in the oven.
I was raised on this recipe and can still remember my Mom baking it fresh on Saturday mornings. It took me awhile to appreciate it, what small child wants granola when they can have Cinnamon Toast Crunch! But now it's one of my favorite breakfasts: it's healthy, it's filling, it's delicious.
My Mom got this recipe from the "More with Less" Cookbook, sold HERE. If you haven't ever seen this cookbook you are missing out. It is a Mennonite community cookbook and it has great, natural recipes in bulk. It's not the best on deserts because a lot of their recipes are low sugar, which I mean if I'm going to eat desert, I want the sugar. But it has fabulous soups, main dishes, breads, and cereals. Definitely check it out.
Granola is really pretty basic. You're mixing your dry ingredients with your wet ingredients and baking it together. You can add dried fruits, different nuts, or anything else to your hearts content. Here I started with 10c. of rolled oats, 1c. wheat germ, 1c. cornmeal, 1c. peanuts, and 1 c. of coconut flakes.
For the wet ingredients I used, 1 1/2c. honey, 1c. peanut butter, 1 T. cinnamon, 2/3c. oil, 1/2c. water and 1T. salt.
MMmmm...so delicious.
You want to combine them on low heat until the peanut butter is completely melted.
Then combine the dry and wet ingredients until they are all mixed together.
Bake at 350 on a greased cookie sheet for 30 min. You will want to turn them every few minutes or so to keep one side from browning too much.
And ta-da! Delicious snack and breakfast all at once. And it's really pretty easy. Again, check out "More with Less," for other great recipes and how to work on keeping your grocery costs down while providing healthy meals.