Easy Granola Recipe

I think that all granola recipes are easy but this one has few ingredients and for some reason that makes life so much easier for me! I like recipes that I already have all the ingredients for in my pantry. I am more likely to make it if that is the case.

So here we go: Gather your ingredients.

Crush 1 cup of nuts (I like walnuts or almonds) and dump them into your large mixing bowl.

Measure 3 cups of old fashioned oats into the same large mixing bowl.

Measure 1/4 cup of honey, 1/4 cup of butter, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Pour butter/honey/spices mixture over oats and nuts in the mixing bowl.

Stir oat mixture with spoon until thoroughly coated.

Pour granola into baking dish.

Place baking dish into the oven at 275 degrees for 1 hour. Stir mixture every 15 minutes.

After an hour in the oven remove baking pan and add 2/3 cup of raisins and stir. Leave the granola in the dish to cool. (or scoop out some and eat it with a little milk right now. YUM)

Store granola in an airtight container. Yes, that is a repurposed plastic mayonnaise container. Phil said "Why are you photographing granola in a used mayonnaise jar?" He knows me too well to ask that! And we both had a good laugh.

Easy Granola Recipe:

1/4 cup butter (or use equal parts butter and extra virgin olive oil)
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 cups Old Fashioned Oats
1 cup of crushed walnuts or almonds
(optional additional ingredients: 1 cup of coconut or 2 tablespoons of flax)
2/3 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Mix ingredients into large bowl (except for the raisins) and pour into baking dish. Bake in the over for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. After an hour remove from heat and stir in the raisins and let cool! Store in airtight container.

The reason why I wanted to started making granola is first of all because my 3 year old LOVES granola and all things breakfast. It is his most favorite meal of the day and requests it for all three meals. He also really likes breakfast cereal which is a heavily processed food that I am trying to get our family to stay away from. Have you heard before that 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contact early onset diabetes? That really scares me because this includes ALL of my current and future children. That is a crazy HUGE amount and affects all my friends children and my nieces and nephews. If I have learned anything in watching "The Biggest Loser" I take comfort in knowing that early onset diabetes can be avoided.

I stumble over great blogs all the time and I recently found one called "100 Days of Real Food" It is a family that started a blog to follow their experiment of eating all real foods for 100 days and blogging about it. This blog has a lot of good information about what how to distinguish between real food and processed food. I want to give you the link to their "rule" page and also just encourage you to browse around on their blog and glean knowledge.