Granola Goodness

I found a recipe for granola that I tinkered with a bit. It's pretty darn tasty, if I do say so myself!

Granola

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. You will need two large baking sheets.

Mix together dry ingredients:
8 cups of rolled oats
1 1/2 cup wheat germ
1 1/2 cup oat bran
1 cup chopped almonds
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup chopped walnuts

Optional add-ins/substitutions:
1 cup of uncooked millet
1 cup of chopped cashews or whatever other nuts you happen to have on hand

In a pan on medium heat, stir together:
2/3 cup oil
1/3 cup peanut butter (I just plop it in my measuring glass with the oil to make it easier to scrape it out and measure)
2/3 cup honey
1/3 cup molasses
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Allow the ingredients in your pan to come to a simmer. Once it starts to boil, remove from heat and stir into your dry ingredients. Pour the mixture into your two baking sheets, spreading so it's evenly distributed.

Bake at 300 degrees for about 35-40 minutes. Halfway through the cooking time, take the pans out, stir the granola and switch shelves in the oven. Keep an eye on it--especially close to the end so it doesn't get burnt.

When the granola is nice and toasty looking (it will harden a little more as it cools), pull it out of the oven. There are a few various add-ons you can do at this point:

Optional Add-ons:
1. Stir in raisins or craisins or both.
2. Stir in a handful of chocolate chips and let the melted chocolate-granola bits cool into lumps of chocolaty goodness.
3. Sprinkle a bit of flaxseed meal over the granola and stir it in. Flaxseed has a lot of nutritional benefits that don't necessarily make it through a lot of heat.

Let the granola cool completely, then put it in an airtight container. I don't know how long it is good for, because it never lasts long enough to find out. I like it with plain yogurt. If you live near me and would like a yogurt start that is super easy to use, I would be happy to share. All you need to make it is whole milk an a quart jar.

On an unrelated note, I was at the store today, and saw this lady with the most amazing hair I have ever seen. She seriously could have passed for the Bride of Frankenstein's sister. I couldn't stop looking at it, and wondering how on earth she got it to look like that. How does someone pick that particular doo? Do you just wake up one morning and think: Huh, maybe I will make my hair look like the Bride of Frankenstein? She was a very elegant looking woman in every other respect. It was just...odd.