Honey Pecan Granola

Hello!  Welcome to my blog!  This entry is all about the homemade granola!  This stuff is sooooo good.  You seriously have to try it!  I had been curious about homemade granola but had never attempted it.  One of my favorite snacks is plain Greek yogurt with some granola on top.  At the end of October, my friend Tara brought me a sample of some granola that she had made.  She knows me well and figured that I would love it!  I did.  And it came at perfect timing.  Sometimes life just goes like that... I had been at the grocery store two days prior and decided to wait on picking up more of our favorite honey granola.  We had a little bit left at home and I just didn't feel like shelling out the extra $ for more granola during that particular Wegmans trip!  We began eating clean in September 2013.  There are some things that we just do not buy anymore.  Many varieties of granola contain a substantial amount of sugar.  My family enjoys granola and we go through a fair amount of it!  Here is a blog entry that I put together on the big difference that we have seen in our made-over yogurt berry trifle.  

So my friend brought me this sample of granola and sent me the link to the recipe.  I made it for the first time a couple of days later.  I remember that it was on Halloween!  I was determined to not eat any of the kids' candy and knew that I would be successful if I could grab a handful of granola here and there.  We pulled up the recipe and my 5 year old son set to work on the project.  We have now made quite a few batches of this stuff!  We typically make a double batch twice per week.  I now have the recipe memorized and can put it together quickly.  My little guy deeply enjoys making granola with me and he oftentimes assembles the ingredients himself!  I have had SO MANY requests for the recipe and I am not always able to quickly locate that original link.  So I decided to go ahead and blog it myself this evening!

This recipe uses nearly all of my favorite kitchen tools, which I had featured in a blog entry earlier this week.   

I am asked about coconut oil on a regular basis and so I wanted to include it in the granola photo collage!  I buy this at Sam's Club.  The cost of coconut oil is SIGNIFICANTLY less at Sam's Club.  No matter where you shop, look for the coconut oil to be cold-pressed.  

We have been using raw honey for the past year and I find this favorite of ours at Wegmans.  It is located in the organic Nature's Marketplace section.  The stuff that comes in the little squeezy bear bottle just does not hold a candle to this type of honey! 

Our version of the granola recipe very closely resembles the original which my friend had discovered and sent to me - you can check it out here.

Honey Pecan Granola

• 2 cups old fashioned oats (not instant)
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil
• 3 tablespoons raw honey
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350.
2. Use a glass bowl to combine butter, coconut oil and raw honey with vanilla extract, cinnamon and the pinch of salt.  Melt in the microwave. (You may also use a pan on the stove-top for this step.)  
3. Add in the chopped pecans and oats.  Stir until the oats and pecans are well coated and glistening.
4. Transfer granola to a stoneware large bar pan and spread evenly.
5. Bake for 8 minutes and then STIR granola thoroughly.  Place back in the oven for 6-7 minutes and keep a close eye on your granola.  You want it to barely, hardly-at-all begin to brown.  DO NOT BURN your granola!!!  You do NOT want to it become a golden brown in your oven! 16 minutes seems to be my usual total cooking time here.
6. Transfer pan to a cooling rack and let granola cool completely. Stir it a couple of times and you will "hear" it begin to "sound" like granola.  When it first comes out of the oven the oats are not yet crisp.  They will still just look like regular oats.  They become much more granola-like as they cool!  
7. Store cooled granola in an airtight container.  It is not likely that you will have this sitting around for very long.  It is that good!  I usually make a double batch and use two of my Bar Pans to bake it all at the same time. A double batch can be mixed up in the Large Batter Bowl.