Granola

I ran out of granola for my morning soy-yogurt and berries the other day and decided that rather than pay so much money for sugar filled granola, I was going to try to make some.  My mom does it, so I should be able to as well.

(I've had many couple non-dairy yogurts over the years to help make up for the pro-biotics that I don't get from dairy, soy yogurt is definitely my favorite.  Coconut yogurt is disgustingly sweet in the morning and the almond yogurt has a weird texture for me.  Trader Joe's has good soy yogurt, Whole Foods has several brands: O'Soy and just noticed that the Stoneyfield's version is back, and then Safeway just started carrying the Silk brand.)

I used this recipe from Chow.com for the first batch, but made a few changes.  I added 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of the cinnamon, 1/4 c. honey plus maple syrup to equal 1/3 c. as called for, slivered almonds (added after the first 15 in the oven) and then a mixture of raisins and dried cranberries.

Having the oven at 300 definitely makes it cook faster, but I would probably stir every 10 minutes rather than 15 as some stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Granted that could happen with it anyways as it has honey in it.

The second batch (I go through a lot of granola) I used a recipe from Epicurious called Everyday Granola (Bon Appetite, 2010).  I used the almonds instead of pecans as that's what I had on hand, omitted the coconut as that's not something I want in the morning, and then added more vegetable oil when it was looking too dry as I was mixing it up.

I stirred every 12 minutes for two rounds (300 degrees), then 10 for the last, cooking for about 34 minutes and that seemed to work well.  Can't wait to enjoy!