Sunshine Granola

If I think about food from my childhood homemade granola was one of my favourites!  My mom would fill the roaster full of oats, sunflower seeds, almonds, pumpkin pepitas, papaya, raisins, dried apricots,and any other fruit she so desired.  After filling our home with the amazing aroma of brown sugar and spices we got to eat this breakfast treat as much as we wanted!  We ate it for breakfast, with yogurt, in snack bags, and my personal favourite....out of the jar itself...picking out our favourite ingredients and putting back the ones we didn't like....Mom soon found out that we didn't care for the candied pineapple....(sorry Mom :))

So its taken me some years....(don't know why) and I have finally started to try to make my own granola!  I think I was intimidated by the process...Silly me....It is so easy I will be making all sorts of granola from now on!  Store bought stuff - - - GROSS!!!!!

Please promise me you won't buy it either....make some of your own!  This recipe is a simple version, pretty basic.  It lends itself to lots of variety.  I started with it to try a simple version - as a test run, because of my insecurity I guess.  I like it...but my next try I will add some cinnamon I think, and play around with the coating.  Have fun experimenting!!  This really is no fail!!

What you will need:

• 3 cups Rolled Oats, Not Quick Cooking Oats
• 1 cup Sliced Almonds
• ¼ cups Water
• ⅓ cups Canola Oil
• ½ cups Honey
• ½ teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup Dried Apricots, Chopped
• ½ cups Dried Cherries, Chopped
• ¼ cups Dried Blueberries
• 1/4 cup dried papaya, pineapple, and mango mix 
• 
  

What you do:

1.  Preheat the oven to 300ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper

2.  In a large bowl, toss together the rolled oats and almonds

 

Ahh sweet honey!  Thanks to my friend Brienna for the new bucket!!!

3.  In a small bowl, whisk together the water, canola oil, honey and vanilla. Add the wet mixture to the rolled oats and almonds and toss to coat. Continue tossing until all the almonds and rolled oats are completely coated in the wet mixture.

 

All mixed up and ready to bake!! 

 

4.  Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet. Bake the granola until the rolled oats and the almonds are completely toasted and almost all the liquid has been soaked up, about 20-35 minutes.  I just watched mine carefully at the end and adjusted the time.  You want it golden brown.  Stir mixture occasionally to allow more of the mixture to brown.

 

Beautiful chopped dried fruit.  I found a cherry blueberry mix at my local grocery store. Bulk sections are wonderful for ingredients!

 

5.  Remove from the oven and add the apricots, cherries and blueberries to the baking sheet. Toss together and place back in the oven for 5 minutes. You just want to the dried fruit to soak up some of the liquid. 

 

 

Lookin' good!!

Enjoy!!!