About a month ago our area had some record flooding. It was intense, there were so many roads closed in the area and many friends had water entering their homes and quite a few of our local parks closed due to excessive flooding. Our local baseball field looked like a pond! Don’t believe me?! Check it out!
While other areas have gotten hit much harder in recent years but it’s still crazy to see in your own back yard. Needless to say when we got most of the rain we decided to stick close to home. I spent most of my time in the kitchen making some homemade basic granola. Since we buy our Gluten Free oats in bulk we pretty much always have a ridiculous amount of oats in the house which means I can make a ridiculous amount of oat filled items! I made two batches of my favorite peanut butter energy balls and two batches of some homemade basic granola.
My kids LOVE when I make granola, they don’t get cereal a whole lot so when I make granola, they eat it like cereal and pour some (almond) milk over it.
Doesn’t that look delicious? Fresh out of the oven my kids are grabbing it by the handful and dumping it into their mouth AND all over the floor! Sometimes I wonder if more ends up on the floor their in their mouths. With all of the extras sugar, preservatives and goodness knows what else you find in store bought granola and cereal, making your own at home just makes sense! If you’re gluten free you can use gluten free oats (like we do) and really save some money! We get these gluten free oats but we buy them in this big bulk bag!
What I love most about this recipe is that you can add whatever you’d like to it to spice it up or a little.
Here are some ideas:
- Almonds
- Pecans
- Sunflower Seeds
- Raisins
- Dried fruit
- Strawberries
- Blueberries
- Mangoes
- Apples
- Bananas
What would you add to make it your own?
Ingredients
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit
- Combine 6 cups rolled oats, 2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp salt in a large bowl.
- In a medium size bowl combine 1 cup pure maple syrup, 1/2 cup melted coconut oil and 2 tablespoons vanilla extract.
- Pour your wet ingredients over your dry ingredients and stir until all of the dry ingredients are well coated.
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the mixture out evenly onto the parchment paper.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes or until granola is golden brown.
- Let cool for 15 minutes and then break into chunks.
- Store in an airtight container.
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