Weekend Splurge - Homemade Granola with Goodies

A couple weekends ago we went to Monterey. We stopped by whole foods for some sandwich stuff and came across the trail mix bar. You had 20 different choices. We thought it was a great idea. Instead of spending the money there we decided, why not make our own. So, this is a double-post! Homemade granola first and then a way to gourmet it up a bit.

• oats - 3-4 cups
• pecans - 1/2 cup chopped
• other nuts - optional, I added 1/4 cup almonds to this batch
• honey - 3/4 cup
• vegetable oil - 1/2 cup
• maple syrup - 1/4 cup
• brown sugar - 3/4 cup packed
• salt - 1/2 tsp
• nutmeg - pinch
• vanilla - 1/2 tsp extract
• cinnamon - 3/4 tsp

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put oats on cookie sheet. Chop up pecans and almonds and add them to the cookie sheet with the oats. In a sauce pan, add honey, vegetable oil, maple syrup and brown sugar. Cook on low-medium. Add in salt, a pinch of nutmeg(Just a couple shakes of ground nutmeg), and cinnamon. Finally, once it has all started a slow boil, remove from heat and add vanilla.

Pour sauce all over the oats on cookie sheet and mix with spatula until they are all covered. Put in over for 15-20 minutes. Stir halfway through. Depending on if you like the granola crunchy or chewy, choose your time. Remove from oven let cool on cookie sheet and stir every 10 minutes or so to make sure it doesn't stick to pan. My son loves this stuff and he already ate one pan and we had to make another all in the same weekend.



Now, to gourmet it up and have your weekend splurge while staying healthy, add in a few more ingredients to your already done granola. Here are a few things we like to add in.

• white chocolate chips
• Craisans
• Almonds
• Roasted Peanuts

You can add in a ton of other ideas, but this is what we did this weekend. Best way to do it, Winco bulk foods. Makes this a great snack and cheap. Add all the ingredients in, but white chocolate chips. Now, you can put white chocolate in microwave and melt in short intervals while stirring or the way we found out by accident. We left all the mixture in the car and when we came back the chocolate had melted and when we shook it and everything came together. Turned out to be a great treat and something our family loves to eat.

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