Hellobee

My love language is food; I love to grocery shop, reorganize the pantry, eat, look for new places to dine, research the latest food trends, and most of all, cook. Anything to do with food makes me overwhelmingly happy. While I meal plan every week, I do not tend to do a whole lot of stockpiling or freezer meals. As I work on figuring out what needs to be prepped and stocked to make the transition from one kid to two easier, I’ve been testing recipes and playing in the kitchen. This homemade granola is delicious!

Adapted from What’s Gaby Cooking

I tried to make her granola bars, but they just didn’t work for me. I couldn’t get them to hold together as bars and they were a little too sweet and buttery for me to be able to pass off as a more healthful breakfast/snacking option.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
2/3 cup almonds (chopped or sliced, or sub out peanuts, cashews)
6 Tbls butter
1/3 cup honey
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1-2 tsp. flax seed or chia seed
2/3 cup dried or freeze dried fruit (raisins, blueberries, strawberries, golden raisins, cranberries all work well here)

Directions:

Heat oven to 350. Line a sheetpan with parchment and toss the oats and nuts together on the parchment. Toast the oats and nuts for 8 minutes, until just beginning to become fragrant and take on color.

Combine butter, honey, sugar, vanilla, salt and seeds in a saucepan and heat until sugar is melted. Add the oats, nuts and fruit to the saucepan and stir to combine. Dump the saucepan out onto the same sheet with parchment paper and smooth out, making the granola about a half inch thick.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, stirring and forming back into a patty half way through. The granola is done when the oats have taken on a nice golden brown color. Be careful towards the end as this can burn quite quickly.

Let the granola cool and then break up into bite size chunks. Store in an airtight container and sprinkle liberally over yogurt, ice cream, or just snack away on its own!