Make Some Granola, Now!

Sorry it's been so long between posts, but I've been battling a hell cold. With the weather outside very blustery and the temperature dropping several degrees every hour, I decided some baking was in order. I've had a hankerin' for granola recently, so I decided to whip up a batch.

Granola is very easy, and so much better than what you can buy, that anyone who even remotely likes it should make it for herself, even if baking isn't her forte. I use the basic proportions of a Cook's Illustrated recipe, but granola is very accepting of ingredient substitutions. Now I wouldn't go so far as substituting tuna, say, for the oats, but you can use any type of nuts, seeds, or rolled grains you like. I just saw some rolled rye flakes in the health food store that I thought might be interesting in granola.

Here are the proportions and the ingredients I used to make today's granola.

1 1/2 cup chopped nuts (1 c. walnuts and 1/2 c. pistachios)
3 cups rolled oats
Flavoring of choice (1/2 tsp. cinnamon + 1/4 tsp. each fenugreek, cardamom and nutmeg)
1/2 cups seeds (sesame and sunflower)
1/2 cup liquid sweetener (sorghum and maple syrup) (honey + maple syrup is traditional)
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup dried fruit (blueberries, cranberries and cherries)

I mixed together the nuts, seeds and oats, then stirred in the spices. I microwaved the sorghum, maple syrup and canola oil until it boiled, about 2 minutes. Then I mixed it all up and spread it in a jelly roll pan. It baked at 325 degrees for 15 minutes, and I stirred it about every 5 minutes. Once it was golden and toasted, I dumped it out into a half sheet pan and stirred in the dried fruit. I let it cool while I went and bought a new digital camera. Yay! I hope the photo looks better than the ones I've been using. Let me know (I still need to work out the details on this puppy - this is a low res version of the photo that looks great on my computer.)