crunchy granola

I've never made homemade granola. I wanted to try.

So, last night I grabbed these ingredients (whoops, vanilla got cut off):



and the end result was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. For this batch I didn't want any dried fruit or anything, just the basic oats and nuts, and it's perfect.



It doesn't take an overly pretty picture, but it's proving to pose a MASSIVE problem for me, in that when I walk by it, if I take a small handful, I seem to lose time and then awake 15 minutes later to find myself still standing there, with crumbs all over my breastal shelf and a significantly smaller amount left in the container.

I used about a third cup honey, a quarter cup each syrup and veggie oil, 2 T water, some salt, vanilla, cinnamon and brown sugar, and mixed it together to cover about 4 cups of rolled oats and a cup of crushed pecans. Baked it for about 35 minutes, stirring it every 10 or so.

This is basically the recipe in my new favorite book, Artisan Breads (the link is in a post below. Granola makes me lazy) with a few small mods.

I also had some temporary blue streaks in my hair last night, given to me by our friends' 12 year old daughter, so perhaps that helped to inject some awesome into the granola, but I don't think the blue streaks are necessary.