Homemade Granola is Amazing. Period.

Several years ago I decided that I liked granola.  It was one of those things where I’d probably had some crappy store-bought granola at one point and was just like, hmm, nope.  But then I had my dad’s homemade maple apricot granola (my cousin’s recipe) with some Yami vanilla yogurt (my personal favorite, and also local!) and some fresh fruit and I was like, YES!!!  Store-bought granola just cannot compare!  Last year when I was taking care of my parents’ house I made my own batch of that granola and fell even more in love with it.  So, needless to say, I was very keen on finding enough local ingredients to make some this summer, as was Pam, so we started doing some research.

At some of the local farmers markets there is actually a company that sells locally sourced and produced granola, but it was always so expensive – almost $10/pound!  There was no way we were paying that much for granola, when I knew we could make it for way cheaper.  But, it was nice to know that the ingredients necessary for the granola would be available locally.

First, the most important ingredient; the rolled oats.  No Quaker oats for us, thank you!  After a little bit of looking we found that Bob’s Red Mill (which produces a lot of specialty flours and other grains and things) had some rolled oats that they mill that are grown right in Oregon.  Not all of their products are sourced locally, but they often say on the package if they are, and these were, so yay!  Then the trick was to search around and see where they were sold.  I did an afternoon of calling and found them at PCC and some other specialty stores, but then, the big surprise was finding them at Fred Meyer!  Not only that, but in bulk!  Everywhere else only had the 1 lb bags, which were going for somewhere around $2.69 or so, but good old Fred Meyer had them in bulk for $0.89/lb!  SUCCESS!

Ok, so here’s the rest of the recipe, along with where we got it for the local ingredients (remember, spices and olive oil are a couple of our exceptions…)

6 cups old-fashioned oats (Bob’s Red Mill; Fred Meyer)

1 ½ cups chopped hazelnuts (CB’s Nuts; Whole Foods)

½ cup hulled sunflower seeds (Kettle Foods; Fred Meyer)

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

⅓ cup olive oil

⅓ cup honey (Mech Apiaries; Pike Place Market)

⅓ cup lemongrass, minced finely (our herb garden!)

1 cup dried pears, finely chopped (my parents fruit trees; their pantry!)

Preheat oven to 350°.  Stir together oats, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, salt, cinnamon, lemongrass, oil, and honey in large bowl.  Spread mixture evenly in 2 large shallow baking pans (~1 inch deep) and bake in upper and lower thirds of oven, stirring and switching position of pans halfway through baking, until golden brown, ~30 minutes total.  Cool granola completely in pans on racks, then stir in dried pears.

With all our local ingredients in hand, we set out to make our granola!

mixing the initial ingredients

chopping the hazelnuts (ours were already roasted so we added them at the end) and pears

baking!!

getting ready to store it, we'll eat a lot now but also freeze some for later.

the finished product!  SOOOOOO yummy!

Making your own granola is really not very difficult and it tastes so much better than what you typically find in the grocery store.  Oh, and another bonus?  You know how that farmers market local stuff is about $10/pound?  Ours was about $3/pound, and $1 of that was just the hazelnuts (gotta find those cheaper...)!  Win, us!!