Happy Easter! I smell granola...

Happy easter everyone! I got up (without an alarm...) at 7:58 AM. Why I remember that? I don't know. But I got up and started to prepare for a recipe from The Kind Diet.

I accidentally dove into the recipe thinking I had all the ingredients, but was under 5 cups of the oats. So I split everything in half, and saved the sugar coconut wheat germ mixture for a topping on oatmeal, or for another granola making day. SOOO heres the recipe.

6 cups quick-cooking oats

1/2 cup maple sugar (I used organic evaporated cane juice)

3/4 cup wheat germ

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup sesame of sunflower seeds

1 cup chopped nuts or raisins (I chopped apricots and dates for one batch, raisins in the other. The raisins look plumped up after being baked and its amusing to push them down to their wrinkly selves again.)

1/2 cup safflower oil

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Spread the oats on a rimmed baking pan, and bake for 10 minutes. Transfer the oats to a large mixing bowl, add the sugar, wheatgerm, coconut, seeds and nuts or raisins. Spread 1/2 mixture on each of 2 rimmed baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes, stir after 5 minutes. Allow to cool and enjoy.

This was super good with soymilk, and I'm still trying to figure out why this granola didn't "clump up" into chunks. But it still makes for a fantabulous cereal.