Nutty Granola

Any of you that have taken my class have already seen my standard, super-easy granola recipe that I've enjoyed since my childhood.  I've also shared a Cranberry-Walnut Granola recipe that was pretty good, and a gRAWnola (raw granola) recipe here.  You'd think I would be satisfied with those, but no.  The other day I saw a recipe for a crock pot granola that was supposedly so good, so I decided I'd like to give it a try.  The first challenge was to find a block of 3 hours when I was going to be home and available to tend to the stuff.  I think it took three days before that happened.  (sigh)  Then I made the stuff, and proceeded to be a slave to it's stirring schedule (every half an hour for the first hour, and then every 15 minutes for the last two hours, or some such).  By the time I was done tending to it, I was thinking that it sure would be disappointing if it didn't turn out that great.  Sure enough, it wasn't.  It burned a little, sealing it's fate as a recipe Not Worth Repeating.  And while I was doing 3 hours of tending and stirring I was finding it kinda puzzling that anyone would think it would be worth it to make granola in the crock pot when you can make it in 10 or 20 minutes while you clean the kitchen and then GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE!  :)

I remembered a very yummy granola recipe that was shared with me by a Mennonite lady that I once knew, and I was inspired to try to make a healthified version of it, because I now have wonderful and versatile Coconut Sugar that I thought would work well in it.  Woe and alas, I looked all through my tattered binder of personal recipes and *could not find that one granola recipe anywhere!*  :(  Sob.  (Don't worry. If I find it I'll do my experiment and see what happens.)

So I turned to the internet, poked around looking for something that looked like what I remembered, couldn't find anything quite right, but found some ideas that I thought were worth stirring together, healthifying, and seeing what magic might happen.  And this is what I got:

8 cups old fashioned oats

1.5 cups wheat germ (one and a half...not fifteen!)

1.5 cups shredded coconut (ditto.  NOT 15!)  Unsweetened would be healthiest.

1 cup chopped almonds

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup chopped walnuts

1.5 teaspoons salt (see that decimal?!  NOT 15)

half cup coconut sugar

quarter-cup maple syrup

three-quarter cup honey

1 cup coconut oil

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Mix up all the ingredients in a big bowl.  Stir well to combine.  Spray two 9x13 pans with non-stick spray and then put half the granola mixture into each pan.  Bake for 20 minutes, stirring once at the 10 minute mark.  Easy!  Delicious.  Flavorful.  Good texture. Satisfying.  :)