Home-made Granola Recipe

Back in my granola days, I used to make my own.
More recently, Eldest introduced granola-making to the younger crowd. Now that she's hiking the PCT (see Borealkraut post here), she needs lots of horsefeed to keep those calories burning, so she requested we send her some home-made granola, and provided this recipe from someone named Joe. content="Microsoft Word 2008">

In a large bowl, mix the following. Joe triples this recipe by measuring with a 4-cup scooper and mixing in a 5-gallon paint bucket, then eating from a trough with yogurt and powdered milk.

• 9 scoops old-fashioned rolled oats (equal to all other ingredients)
• 1 ½ scoops wheat (or oat) bran
• 1 ½ scoops sesame seeds (½ ground in blender)
• 1 ½ scoops sunflower seeds (cooked or uncooked)
• 1 scoop sliced almonds
• ½ scoop flax seed ground in blender
• 1 ½ scoop dates

Note: If you want raisins in the granola, add them after it is cooked.

Stir the dry ingredients together with your hands. Then pour in:

• 1 ¼ scoop oil

Stir the oil in well (with your hands), working the oil through all the oat mix. Then add and do the same with:

• 1 ½ scoop honey

Work this in until all the lumps are gone.

Spread foil on two cookie sheets and grease them with Pam or oil. Spread the raw granola in the pans, no more than 1-inch deep. Cook at 325ºF for 15 minutes (set a timer) or until the edges of the granola in the bottom pan begin to get slightly brown. If this takes much more than 15 minutes, turn up the heat in your oven a bit, but keep in mind that the honey makes the granola burn easily when the temperature is too high.

After 15 minutes, switch the pans on the oven racks, one to the top, one to the bottom, so both brown evenly. (You only want a very light browning for most of the granola.) Cook for another 15 minutes (30 minutes total).

Immediately after removing the granola from the oven, use a spatula to scrape it into a big container or bowl to cool. When it is cool, cover it tightly and store at room temperature.

Now to this week's variation, which I shall call

ALASKAN GRANOLA FOR THE MOJAVE DESERT

my "scoop" was sized 1/4 cup -- I'm starting small since my oats are running low...

2 1/4 c rolled oats

1/4 c sesame seeds

1 T ground flax seed

1/2 c sliced almonds

1/2 c dried blueberries

1 T finely chopped candied orange peel

Test eaters at Borealkitchen generally prefer their granola without fruit, but otherwise approved.

Future variations might include:

ginger?

coconut