The Asheville in me....

Seeing as I had pretty much all the ingredients on hand, I decided to give granola a try. Yes, I had most of the ingredients on hand. Apparently I really thought a giant, Sam’s Club container of oats was really necessary. There’s not even cabinet space for this container—it sits on top of my wine glasses, because I’m fancy. Anyway, while it seems super easy, apparently granola can be very temperamental and somewhat difficult to master. But again, I consulted www.allrecipes.com, and settled on this top-rated recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Megans-Granola/Detail.aspx

I pretty much followed the recipe exactly but I left out the oat bran (I’m not even quite sure what this is or where I find it in the grocery store! Somewhere in the cereal aisle I’m guessing….) and added coconut (which, for some reason, I had in my cupboard). Note: granola burns really easily and really quickly. Once you take it out of the oven, it just continues to cook itself. I find that slightly “smoky” flavor delightful though and when you mix it with the other batches that are less “smoky”, it’s just fine! It turned out pretty well I think, especially for a first attempt. And thanks to the ample recipe serving size (which I apparently overlooked), I had plenty to share with my friends, who are really good sports about this whole cooking thing.

On a side note, as I’m following more recipes and learning more about cooking, I’m discovering a bunch of healthy-cooking tips, such as cutting the required vegetable oil in the recipe above with applesauce. I seriously had no idea that this was an option. I’ll try it next time though! J If you have any other healthy cooking tricks or tips, I would love to hear them!

So yep, this is a great recipe for granola and it makes a whole bunch!!! Careful, it can be addictive though and with that much vegetable oil, I feel like maybe the healthfulness of it may be questionable! I’m pretty sure adding more dried fruit will help though. J