Homemade Granola

I had been wanting to experiment with making homemade granola for awhile now.  I eat granola in my yogurt almost every day and since almost everything homemade tastes better, I decided to give it a whirl.  I found a recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, Second Helpings with Johnnie Gabriel, (and of course modified it just a bit...)

Ingredients-
4 cups oats
2 cups coconut (I only used 1 cup because I don't love coconut...)
2 cups sliced almonds
3/4 cups whole almonds (I didn't have any whole almonds so I left these out)
1/2 cup pecans
1/2 cup walnuts
3/4 cup canola oil (I used coconut oil and you should too...)
3/4 cup honey
1 cup Craisins (I don't like dried fruit very much, so I ended up leaving these out at the last minute, but I'm it would be great with the Craisins)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

In a large bowel combine oats, coconut, all almonds, pecans, and walnuts

In a medium bowl whisk together the oil and honey.  (If you use coconut oil you will have to melt it down over the stove before mixing with the honey)

Pour wet mixture over dry ingredients and thoroughly mix.

Evenly spread on sheet pans covered in parchment paper.  ( I love parchment paper, and for whatever reason I didn't use it.  I only used non-stick spray and I regretted it.  Cleaning the honey and oil residue off the pans was not fun...)

Bake for about 30 minutes, tossing very 12 minutes, until the granola is a golden brown

Yummy!

After toasted to a perfect golden brown, add the Craisins, evenly distributing them among your pans.  Toss the granola to incorporate Craisins.  Smooth out again and allow to cool.

Store in airtight container for up to 4 weeks.  (I didn't have enough jars to store it in, so I'm keeping it in this Pyrex, but canning jars would be best)

 Verdict- LOVED IT!  The toasted nut flavor that I don't normally have in my granola is fabulous!

And as a side note, if you are trying to figure out how you are going to eat all this granola on your own, it makes a great gift.  We had a new neighbor move into our townhouse unit a few weeks ago, so we brought her over some berries, homemade whipped cream, and homemade granola.  Yum!

When our next door neighbor moved in and got married about a year ago I made them a homemade carrot cake.  The first time I met Brad, he jokingly asked me if I made a good carrot cake.  Well I had never made a carrot cake (aside from the one out of a box) in my life so I decided to try.  It turned out great!  So great in fact that right after we gave it to them Brad ended up in the hospital with some pretty serious medical conditions stemming from diabetes, which he was newly diagnosed with during his hospital stay.  Whoops.  They joked that I was trying to kill him with sugar.  I felt awful.  So now I try to give "lighter" welcome gifts...