The BEST Homemade Granola Recipe!

Hey y'all! I'm back from the wedding, my nicely wrapped gift made it safely to the new bride and groom's apartment and I have an AWESOME recipe for you today!

I don't know about you, but this whole economy thing has been kinda sorta freaking me out. I've been trying to be a lot more frugal with things, and especially trying to learn how to cook with our food storage so I don't have to be trying to learn while I'm under a lot of stress the world is ending and don't know what the heck I'm doing.

Food storage, you ask? Yup. I'm talking wheat, beans, rice, dehydrated and freeze dried fruits and vegetables, powdered milk (gag), oats...stuff like that. I am LDS, and our church leaders of have advised us to have at least a years supply of food storage so that we are prepared. (It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark, ya know?) I've been working on building ours up for about 5 years now. I could do an ENTIRE week of posts on food storage, maybe later. Right now, I'm hungry. (Though, if you would be interested in some posts on food storage, what to get, where to get it, how much you need per person, how to store it, etc. let me know!)

So, ANYWAYYYYY...I decided to make homemade granola yesterday. I have to say, it turned out AMAZING! Granola can be really expensive! At Safeway it's around $4 a box. A little box at that. I made about 7 cups of it for around $1. No joke. And it tasted SOOOO much better than the store bought granola with all sorts of random preservatives and who knows what in it! Now, aren't you just dying for the recipe? :)

HEEEERE YOU GO!

Honey Coconut Granola

4 C. rolled oats
1 C. whole wheat flour (you can use white, too...)
3/4 C. honey OR
1 1/4 cup pure maple syrup (it just gives it more of a maple-ish flavor)
(heck...maybe you could try half honey and half maple syrup! Mmmmm!)
1 C. coconut
1/4 C. cooking oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. chopped pecans (optional)

Thoroughly mix together. Spread on a cookie sheet, bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes stirring occasionally while baking.

You can also add things like sesame seeds, cinnamon, chopped almonds, raisins, etc. but add the raisins AFTER you bake it or it'll be like eating raisin flavored rocks. And we ALL know that eating raisin flavored rocks is no fun.

The best part is that granola is so versatile! It's not just for breakfast. You can put in on parfaits or use it as an ice cream topping! You can even use it as cobbler topping in your dutch ovens. Man, I love this stuff. Oh man. I'm starving. I think I'll go have a snack, and I'll bet you can't guess what it is. :)

ENJOY, my sweet little granola munchers!