Homemade Granola

This is an old recipe but one I had not made in a long time until recently.

Granola

5 cups rolled oats
1 cup oat flour  (optional)
pinch salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3/8 cup honey
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix oats, salt, and spices together  Whisk together honey, oil. water, and vanilla and pour over oats mixture.  Stir to mix and evenly coat oats.  Pour into 9x13" pan and bake @ 300' ~40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  Granola is done when it is starting to brown.  It will harden as it cools. Let cool fully, then store in an airtight container.  I usually keep it in the fridge.

For the oat flour, I grind rolled oats in a coffee grinder, but a blender also will work.

Granola lends itself to modification!  Any combination of nuts, seeds, or dried fruit can be added. A favorite alternate version of the above is replacing the honey with pure maple syrup and the oil with melted butter.  The original recipe had 1/2 cup oil and 1/2 cup honey, but this seemed too sweet and rich for me, so I decreased the honey and replaced part of the oil with water. When I was making this for my family may years ago, we quadrupled the recipe and made it in four 9x13" pans.  I also found this works well on the stove top if you have a stock pot large enough.  I figure it also would work in the crock pot but have not gotten as far as trying that yet. :)

Edit 8/29/18 to add notes from 3/26/17: Crock Pot Granola
Well, after thinking of trying for years, I finally did it!  I tried making granola in the crock pot.  I considered looking online for recipes, but since I had already made granola the normal way in the oven, plus on the stove top as an experiment years ago, I knew it pretty much had to work.  So, I just used my regular granola recipe and put it in the crock pot.  Except, I rarely follow even my own recipes, so substituted pure maple syrup for the honey and mix of coconut oil and butter for the oil, just because it sounded good, was another idea from the past that I do not think I ever tried.  So, two experiments in one attempt!  It worked great!  Unfortunately, I was working on other projects and did not keep track of how long things took. Basically, just dump everything into the crock pot, mix well, cook on high stirring every 10-15 minutes until browned, then pour onto cookie sheet or into large bowl to cool.  Once cool, I store it in an air tight container in the fridge, but it can be stored at room temperature.

Edit 2/20/19: Peanut Butter Granola
This is very good with peanut butter replacing both the oil and water! I ended up adding an extra spoonful of peanut butter and more honey to make sure it all mixed well. I also tried mixing the dry ingredients in the pan, pouring the wet ingredients over and mixing it right in the baking pan. That worked well. This experiment did give me yet another idea....for later experimenting.

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