Granola

This is an edited version of Alton Brown's granola recipe.

Ingredients

• 3c rolled oats
  
• 1c chopped or slivered almonds
  
• 3/4c shredded coconut
  
• 3T brown sugar
  
• 2T honey or maple syrup
  
• 1c raisins, chopped dates, and craisins
  
• pinch of salt
  
• anything else you happen to want to add (today we added about 1/4c peanuts to supplement a lack of almonds).
  

Preheat oven to 250. Take out a baking sheet with moderately steep sides. Add the oats, nuts, coconut, sugar, honey (more or less evenly), and salt. Stir that around with a spatula or wooden spoon. Then put it in the oven and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, taking it out ever 15 minutes and stirring it around to make sure it toasts evenly. Once it's done, throw in the dried fruit.

Thoughts: We've made this a couple times, and it always turns out well. It's kind of a 'blank slate' recipe - you could just add cinnamon or vanilla, maybe orange zest, or chocolate chips (though only after it's done baking). Actually, come to think of it, you could probably use chocolate chips slightly before it's done baking and get sort of 'clusters' of granola, though you'd probably have to refrigerate it once it comes out of the oven.

Disaster Index: 1/10 - A fool-proof, open-ended recipe. Maybe you could make granola bars out of it, too.