Nutty Granola

My husband and I eat A LOT of granola. We usually toss some on top of our morning yogurt, but we also enjoy it for breakfast or a snack with some milk and fruit.

We've grown quite addicted to Trader Joe's Just the Clusters Vanilla Almond Granola Cereal, but I wanted to see if I could make something similar at home. I don't know if this recipe is healthier (somehow I doubt it, since it includes an entire stick of butter!), but it was pretty easy to throw together. I found this particular recipe in the July 2014 issue of Food & Wine.

Nutty Granola by Zoe Nathan

Food & Wine Magazine

1 lb. old-fashioned rolled oats (4 cups)
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup raw almonds
1/2 cup raw walnuts
1/3 cup raw pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds)
1/4 cup flaxseeds
1 cup dried cherries (4 oz.)
1 cup dried apricots, chopped (5 oz.)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a bowl, toss the oats, melted butter, honey, salt and cinnamon until evenly coated. Spread the oats on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until just starting to brown. Add the coconut, almonds, walnuts, pepitas and flaxseeds and mix well. Bake for 25 minutes longer, stirring, until the granola is golden brown and nearly dry.

Remove from the oven and toss in the dried cherries and apricots.

Let the granola cool completely on the baking sheet, stirring occasionally.

The granola can be stored in an airtight container and will keep for 1 week. 

Yield: 10 cups

My Notes:

I lined my sheet pan with parchment paper.

I used pecans and sunflowers seeds, instead of pepitas and flaxseeds.

I omitted the cherries and accidentally added the apricots when I added the nuts and coconut. This was a mistake, as they wound up very tough and chewy.

Adding the sunflower seeds was fine, but they were salted, so this entire batch of granola tasted too salty for my liking. Next time, I will get raw, unsalted sunflower seeds and I might even reduce the kosher salt amount to just 1/2 teaspoon instead of 1 1/2 teaspoons.

Next time add some vanilla extract. Maybe 1 teaspoon.

This makes a lot of granola. I filled 2 large (quart-size) Mason jars and still had some left over.

I'm not sure why this wouldn't keep longer than just 1 week.

Looks pretty tasty, doesn't it? We liked it, but neither of us loved it. We'll see what happens when I try my modifications.

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