Granola

The first time I heard of granola was from Man of the House, a movie I watched pretty often as a kid (and ps: the Biebs has nothing on JTT). Any who, in the movie, the future step dad makes a big fancy breakfast which the son refuses to eat and the mom makes his excuses by telling her fiancé that they usually only eat yogurt and granola.

Twenty plus years later, thanks to my cousins' blog, I learned what granola actually is.

A couple years after that, thanks to Sam's Club's taste testing, I actually tried some--and it was DElicious! So . . . instead of buying the 2 lb. bag for around $8, I decided to try my hand at making some of my own.

I used Jaime's recipe for Farm Girl Granola as my guide, but omitted a few of her ingredients: coconut, almond butter, and dried fruit. Coconut because I don't like it. Almond butter because I didn't have any and it was optional anyway. Dried fruit because I wanted my granola to be versatile; I can still add dried fruit to it when I'm in the mood.

For the nuts, I used equal parts chopped almonds and pecans--just because that's what I had. Also, my honey/molasses combination was equal parts of each. And I added 1 cup of wheat germ and a very light (because of my goal of versatility) sprinkling of cinnamon to the last 8-10 minutes of baking.

It turned out  . . . (drum roll please) . . . FANtastic!

My first taste was after it had cooled a bit but was still warm. YUM!

Then I spread some peanut butter into celery stalks and rolled it in granola. YUM!

Then I poured milk over some and ate it like cold cereal. YUM!

Then I made a parfait with strawberry yogurt, fresh raspberries, and granola. YUM!

Then I added some granola to my cold cereal. YUM!

Then I made cranberry granola muffins. YUM!

Oh, how I've enjoyed having granola around! The cranberry granola muffins were today's experiment; all I did was add craisins and granola to my favorite sweet muffin recipe (Betty Crocker's). They turned out hearty and delicious; they were a big hit.

I'm looking for more fun ways to use my granola, so if you have any ideas, please leave a comment!