I love granola, but honestly I have never made homemade granola…of course until now! It reminds me of our family trips to Glacier National Park and Yellowstone. My parents and I would meet up there with my dad’s brother’s family and we would spend a week out in the wilderness hiking and camping. My Aunt, Uncle and cousins would pack up their RV and drive from Iowa and we would meet them there. Of course we took the other route and flew. My Aunt Ter would always bring along homemade granola. She would pack big bags of it so we would have for the week. My cousins and I would always have a zip lock bag packed away in our backpacks and at the resting point of our long hikes that was the first thing we grabbed to much on.
Lately, I was getting tired of having oatmeal in the morning but I was trying to think what alternative I could have…then it clicked, Granola!! Shortly after, I stumbled on a very cute blog called Running the Traveling Road. She had a great granola recipe that I knew I had to try. I made a couple adjustments to my recipe by adding pecans and reducing the sunflower seeds and subbing out some of the brown sugar for sucanat (non-refined cane sugar)…oh and added maple extract. The end result was super delicious! The best thing about granola is you can pour milk over it and have it for breakfast. Add it to your yogurt with fruit or even grab a handful for a snack. Even my girls loved it! I gave them a couple bites and Laine looked at me and said her famous “yummy mommy!” So it’s a winner and I think this means I will be making lots of homemade granola in the future. Thanks Running the Traveling Road for the recipe!
Homemade Granola
- 4 cups rolled oats
- ½ cup ground flax
- ¼ cup sunflower seeds
- ½ cup pecans, chopped
- ½ cup sliced almonds
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
- ½ cup light brown sugar, packed (I used ¼ cup brown sugar and ¼ cup sucanat)
- 1/3 cup canola oil
- 1/3 cup honey
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp maple extract
Preheat oven to 250. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper
Mix together first 7 ingredients (thru pumpkin pie spice)
Whisk together brown sugar, oil, honey, salt, vanilla and maple extracts. Incorporate wet ingredients into dry.
Spread evenly on 2 large baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring the granola every 15 minutes to ensure even baking and color.
Multiply Delicious 
