Make Your Own Vanilla Crunch Granola

Ingredients

• 3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 cup roasted unsalted sunflower seeds
• 3 TBS flax seeds
• 3 TBS wheat germ
• 3/4 cup chopped almonds
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 TBS cinnamon
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 TBS brown sugar
• 4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chopped dried cherries
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1 cup chopped dried apricots

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and grease two baking sheets that have sides (I used the base to my broiler pan and a metal 13×9 cake pan).
2. Thoroughly mix the oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, wheat germ, almonds, walnuts, cinnamon, and shredded coconut in a large bowl.
3. In a small saucepan on the stove on low, melt the butter, honey and brown sugar until warm but not hot.
4. Remove from heat, immediately mix in the vanilla extract, then pour over the oats/seeds.  Mix until they are all coated evenly.
5. Spread in a thin layer – maybe 1/4 inch – on the baking sheets.
6. Bake at 325 for 20-30 minutes.  Check and stir around 20 minutes, then keep a close eye (and nose!) because once it starts burning, it burns quickly.  I stirred at 20, then took it out at 26 minutes.  **If you want chunky granola, do not stir!**
7. Cool, then add all the fruit and mix well.  If you want chunky granola, break up the granola into pieces and mix fruit throughout.

Makes 6 cups of granola.

Turns out there are a lot of ways to make granola.  This stuff turned out pretty tasty.  Derek said it was too “seedy” but I like the seeds.  I think we added too many apricot pieces – a half a cup would’ve been perfect.  We tried this over yogurt, on oatmeal and eaten like cereal… I can imagine it’d be tasty on ice cream as well.  Hmm… we have leftover vanilla ice cream from the ice cream sandwich cookies…

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