A staple, but not a staple, a granola

So, I have been making a great granola recipe for about a month now and keep meaning to share it, but haven't had a moment. I don't actually have a moment right now, I am at that point in the semester where every minute counts, and every minute not used reading, or thinking, or thinking about reading is wasted.

But my eyes are ready to fall out of my head and roll around the floor, if that conveys that I am tired. My typing babbling will convey that I am tired if my really horrible description of my eyes doesn't.

Here is the fat free granola recipe I found. I was over the top excited because I hate all the oil in granola. I just won't do it. But we love granola, dave, Corrina and I, so I had to find something.

The recipe is from here, but I will type it out again, and add my thoughts. You should go to the other website because they have pictures, where as I am too tired to press the on button on the camera and take a picture of my fresh granola. I will now turn and look at it on your behalf, but that's all your getting tonight.

So, recipe:

450ml rolled oats (quick cooking, but not instant... as least quick cooking as you can find, maybe normal even.. they say quick cooking leaves a startchy taste when baked into granola, and I actualy found this to be true)

60 ml sun flower seeds (not deshelled from your mouth and than spat out)

120 ml sesame seeds

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

100 ml brown sugar (I use splenda brown sugar blend because, because I do...)

150ml of almond slivers

100 ml hazelnuts chopped (I just add more almonds)

1 tsp salt

*option: I add about 1/4-1/2 c. of wheat germ

*mix all that in a bowl! Yippy*

Now mix this in another bowl, or if you're a cheater like me just mix it all together in your glass pyrex cup

175 ml apple sauce

120 ml corn syrup (I hate that this is in here, and usualy try to take some out. Seems to work fine with a little less, maybe 100 ml instead. Any ideas for alternatives?)

4 Tbsp runny honey (I didn't have any tonight and the batch came out great, so skip this is you are cutting our excess sugar.. or keep this in and take out more corn syrup)

*mix all this into the dry, plop it on a baking sheet, nice and flat. You can even squish it a little with your spatula. Kinda fun.

Now bake it in a 350 oven, for 30-40 minutes, stirring every ten minutes. Make sure you work the edge bits into the middle, so they don't get scorched.

For me this is enough to fill only one cookie sheet, but if you fill two, or double the batch than switch the cookie sheets around with the stirring.

Watch the granola closely and when it starts to brown all over just leave it out of the oven. it may look a little wet still, but it gets very crunchy once it sits. So many lovely clusters too!

Once it's cooled, stir in about a cup of raisins, or crasins, whichever you like. Or you could do chopped dried apricots. I think I'll do that next week!

Seriously, I am never buying store bought again, or making any granola with oil in it. This stuff is amazing.

In other news, Dave is putting together a brand new bed frame we found at a thrift store. We had to do some piecing, but for the most part it looks great! I have never had a bed frame before. We've been sleeping on a mattress on the floor for a year, no box spring, no joke! The spring doesn't fit up our stairs. I can't wait to be up off the dang floor! I should go supervise now...

I am thinking about changing our blog template, but don't know where to find something neat to switch to. Any ideas?