Slow Roasted Granola

****Updated April 2012**** After having made this for many months now, I have made some changes to the recipe based on what we have come to prefer. My husband has withdrawals if I do not always have granola in the house!! (He eats it as a snack in addition to breakfast!)

I have been trying out granola recipes and experimenting with different things for a couple of months now. I could eat granola every morning and be perfectly happy! I love the stuff.

A few notes: Granola is such forgiving stuff. You can pretty much change anything to fit your own tastes and as long as you keep the ratios generally the same it will be fine. My recipe is rather complicated because I keep all that stuff on hand and like to incorporate it in my baking, but you don't need to if you don't want to. I have a friend who keep it as simple as: oats, nuts, unsweetened coconut, oil and sweetener (part honey, part maple syrup). I know some people have had a hard time trying to find unsweetened coconut. I have found a good resource, but if you can only find the sweetened, you can just use it instead for a sweeter granola or adjust the sweeteners a bit to make up for it. This recipe is not overly sweet (in my opinion). I just recently started using applesauce in place of part of the oil or butter. It does make the granola a bit chewier rather than crunchy. I still use some butter along with it because, well, I like the taste of butter. You could simply use all oil if you wanted or all applesauce (or all butter- that is really yummy! It depends on what you are going for!) As for sweetener, you can do what you would like. It was recommended to me not to do all honey because it can be too sticky. You can also do brown sugar if you like. The reason I like to use the Agave nectar is that it is a sweetener with a low glycemic index. That means it won't spike your blood sugar. That's a good thing. For every four parts of regular sweetener the recipe calls for, you only use 3 parts of Agave. Finally, about the water and egg whites: the egg whites are supposed to make your granola clumpier. I really do think it works. But, sometimes I don't want to deal with eggs, so water is just easier. If you have a hankering for Custard, by all means go for the egg whites and save the yolks for that! (I have the BEST Custard recipe- look for that on here soon!) Okay, now that I have talked your ear off about the ingredients, here is the recipe:

Slow Roasted Granola

8 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup flax seeds (I sometimes leave these out- or replace with chia seeds or sesame seeds)

1/2 cup flax seed meal

1/2 cup wheat germ

1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut

1 cups chopped almonds

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1/4 cup canola oil

3 Tbsp melted butter

3/4 cup Agave nectar (or 1/2 cup honey AND 1/2 cup maple syrup)

1/4 water or 4 egg whites

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 275. Mix oats, flax and flax seeds, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, chopped nuts and coconut in a large bowl. Stir remaining ingredients together in a smaller bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. Lightly grease two large rimmed baking sheets (jelly roll pans). Spread half of the granola on each sheet. Bake for about 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes. I switch the pans top to bottom every time I stir to avoid one being more brown than the other. Let cool on the pan, then store in jars. (I find that with my oven, it really only needs about 50 minutes or so.)

This makes a big batch, which is nice so you don't have to make it so often. It actually stores very well in the freezer, if you are worried about it being in your cupboard too long.