Yum yum Granola

Words and pictures cannot describe baking.

You must be able to taste and smell it.

But hell, I'll make you jealous you can't eat or smell my granola...

Yesterday, I finally got to sleep in after a couple days of opening at Kaldi's and once I woke up, all I wanted to do was to make granola. So I quickly woke up, whipped up the ingredients, and started baking. I got the recipe from Alton Brown from the Food Network.. (if that means anything to anyone.) But when I googled granola recipe, it came up with 5 stars from over 200 reviewers... I thought this has to be good. Of course, I rarely follow the ingredients entirely..

His ingredients are as follows:

- 3 cups rolled oats

- 1 cup slivered almonds

- 1 cup cashews

- 3/4 cup of shredded sweet coconut

- 1/4 cup (plus 2 tbsp) brown sugar

- 1/4 cup (plus 2 tbsp) maple syrup

- 1/4 cup vegetable oil

- 3/4 cup salt

- 1 cup raisins

I halfed the recipe and changed it quite a bit.

Mine goes as follows:

- 1 1/2 cup rolled oats

- 1/2 cup slivered almonds

- 1/2 cup of mixed sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds (instead of cashews... i like the seeds better)

- 1/4 cup brown sugar

- 2 tbsp honey (instead of maple syrup)

- 2 tbsp vegetable oil

and that was it! I ommitted the coconut because we don't have any.. (& kevin doesn't like it) who needs salt! and raisins aren't my fav.

Anyway, you mix all the dry ingredients and all the wet ingredients and then combine the two. The oven needs to be set around 300 degreeds. Then, I just checked and stirred the granola every 15 minutes until crispy enough for my liking.

Before:

After:

Now the real reason I was craving granola so much was because last weekend my family and I went to a local St. Louis Cafe: Local Harvest Cafe. My dad and I split a sandwhich, which I thought would have eggs. (I need to learn how to read. Bummer) I was pretty excited for an egg sandwhich because they use all fresh local eggs. Additionally, we split a yogurt parfait, 'hit the trail.' This is what inspired me to make the granola and my delicious breakfast:

Yogurt with Bananas, homemade granola, a bit of honey, and walnuts with a side of toast (from whole foods) with perserves from a local farm (which I bought from the Local Harvest's grocery store).

All I can say, is it was a successful, delicious breakfast. yummy.