Really Good, Healthier Granola- Really!

My friend Becky brought some granola to our CO. house to share a year or two ago and I loved it! I asked her to share the recipe, which is her own, formed from trial and error.

I took the recipe and with some further experimentation, came up with this.

It is even yummier than it looks, and this recipe makes a lot! I put a few spoonsfull on my morning porridge [oatmeal here in the USA] and it adds a lot of flavor. A small amount packs a lot of punch! I call it healthy because the ingredients are good as well as tasty, like the Agave and banana for sweetness,

and expelled, pressed, organic coconut oil.

I use Agave rather than sugar or honey since it is sweeter than sugar and lower on the glycemic scale.

I love ginger so I added maybe half a cup of chopped crystallized ginger.

We have a very prolific little orange tree in our backyard and I save the rind from many of them to make sugared orange peel, so I chopped up some of that too, it adds a hint of orange.
We had some dried cherries that had dried out a bit too much so I put them in a saucepan with the ginger and orange rind and a little orange juice and cooked it down till the fruit had softened and hydrated and the liquid was pretty much gone.

I was all out of coconut but I plan to buy some tomorrow, toast it and add a cup or two.

In case you are now curious as to the how and what of this concoction, my recipe follows, but in Becky's words it is a "very flexible recipe".

About 8 cups of oatmeal, I used a combination of old fashioned and quick.

1 cup sunflower seeds

1 cup of wheatgerm

3/4 cup flaxseed meal

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

1 1/2 cups chopped toasted almonds

Combine above ingredients together in a very large bowl.

1 1/4 cup Agave syrup

1 cup oil

2 tsp. cinnamon [more if you like]

1 1/2 tsp.salt

1 tblsp. vanilla

1-2 ripe bananas

Place above six ingredients [syrup, oil, bananas etc] in blender and process till smooth then heat in microwave.

Stir into dry ingredients in bowl and spread in two large baking pans and bake about 45 minutes in a 300 degree oven, or until golden brown, stirring occasionally.

Pour the oatmeal mix back into the large bowl and add the following ingredients :

2 cups toasted coconut

2 cups chopped dates

1 cup chopped dried cherries or raisins

Other dried fruits as desired, like the crystallized ginger, orange rind, craisins, currants, blueberries, strawberries, papaya etc. Other nuts too if you like, pecans, macadamias. The more flavor you add the less you need and still get great, satisfying taste in only a small amount of the rich mixture.

It's delicious on ice cream too, or over stewed apple.

Let me know if you try it and any further variations you may add!