Granola

I have been on a long quest for making my own granola for some time now, and I am finally happy with this recipe.  This quest started because over the years I have realized there are way too many prepackaged snacks.  What did mothers do 50 years ago?  Not only do I hate to think about all of the preservatives and empty calories, but I can't take all the packaging waste.  A box for the product and then all the wrappers.  It makes me crazy to create all the trash just for a few bites.  So I have slowly being trying to replace our store bought snacks with ones we make at home.

The two best things about this recipe is that it is very easy to make and you can substitute in and out your favorite nuts and dried fruit.

Preheat oven to 250

3 cups rolled oats

3/4 cup shredded sweetened coconut

1/4 brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 1/2 cup chopped pecans (I used pecans because I love them and they came out of my Grandmother's tree)

1/4 vegetable oil

1/4 pure maple syrup

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup rasins

Mix dry ingredients into a lagre bowl, keeping rasins a side.  In a smaller bowl mix all of the wet ingredients   Combine well together and then spread onto a cookie sheet with an edge.

 Place into a preheated over of 1 hour and 15 mins.  Turn the granola every 15 mins so that it will brown evenly.

Once it is cooled store in an air tight container.  I can not tell you how long it will keep because it is typical gone with in 48 hours.

This granola is fantastic on its own, on top of yogurt, but this our family's new go to breakfast cereal.

I will separate some portions out for snacks to be put in our pantry's snack box (more on that later)

Enjoy!

Robin-

Blog Reboot

I thought of my long forgotten blog the other day, so when I brought up my little space in cyberspace I was shocked to see people still visit my blog. So, I have decided to give another go at blog writing. Since 2010 my boys are grown older which has allowed me more time to pursue some intrest of my own.  I went back to school, and I discovered I loved writing.  I am not sure who is listening but I realized I loved looking back at how my kiddos have changed over the last two years and I was reminded of things they said.  So I am looking at this blog is an open journal to keep memories of our days.