I’ve read in several places that if you make homemade granola, you will never buy store-bought granola again. It has been on my list of want to try for a long while but of course, I never did and kept buying it at the store. Well, this weekend my husband ran out of granola. He usually eats a bowl of granola and yogurt every morning. Instead of putting it on my grocery list, I thought it was a perfect time to try to make some of my own. Maybe it would come out okay. I strapped baby girl on my back and attempted my first try at homemade granola. It didn’t come out okay, it came out wonderfully delicious! And it was so easy to make. I’m telling you right now… I’ll never go back to store-bought granola. I used the recipe from here but tweaked it quite a bit because I didn’t have many of the things the recipe called for. You should try it… I’m telling you it won’t disappoint.

Homemade Granola (adapted from Orangette’s Daily granola)

Dry Ingredients:

5 cups rolled oats

2 to 3 cups raw pecan or almond halves (I used just pecans)

1 cup raw hulled sunflower seeds

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:

3/4 cup canned organic pumpkin (the original recipe called for applesauce but mine had already gone bad, so I used this in its stead and it worked marvelously).

1/3 cup maple syrup (once again, the original called for brown rice syrup and I had none so I used maple syrup).

1/4 cup honey

2 tblspoons coconut oil (original called for vegetable oil and we were out. Coconut oil worked just fine).

1 tsp vanilla extract (I added this in for a touch of vanilla flavor to it).

preheat the oven to 300

In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients. Mix well. In a small bowl, mix all wet ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ones and mix well. Spread the mixture onto two rimmed baking sheets. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. Set a timer to go off every ten minutes while the granola bakes, so you can rotate the pans and mix the granola so that it cooks evenly. Let the granola cool on the pans. Scoop cooled granola into an airtight container. Enjoy!