Granola is a must in every blog I guess :-)! Almost all the yummy food blogs that I go through has at least one entry for this recipe. I don’t know why there is a strong attraction to Granola- but if you have a blog, you gotta include this in your recipe list.

So here I am – determined not to be left out. Mission now is to find that perfect recipe, which will make me the Granola queen of the neighborhood. And you know what? This one did! At least three people asked me what I cooking because of the wonderful aroma coming from my kitchen :). My son finished a bowl of these with milk, as soon as it was cool enough to eat. What more can one ask for! A true case of ‘Neighbor’s envy! Owner’s Pride’.

I had already zeroed down on the Granola recipe, when I came across the tried and tested event for this month. The event was started by Zlamushka and is now taken care by Lakshmi of Kitchen Chronicles. This month the event is hosted by Jayasri of Samayal Arai.

And the blog for this month is Deeba’s Passionate About Baking. What a coincidence for me! I wanted to make the Granola anyway and now I can submit it for the event too. Two birds, one shot!

I had made slight changes in the recipe.  You can find the exact recipe in Deeba’s blog. But thought I will pin it down here for lazy people like me.

Ingredients :

3 cups oats
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup seedless dates, chopped fine
1/2 cup raisins
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips or shavings*

*chocolate doesn’t last more than 3 minutes in this house, so I didn’t use this.

Method: 

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a large baking tray covered with parchment paper.
2. Mix oats, wheat germ, dates raisins and chopped almonds in a big bowl.
3. Heat a small pan, add the butter, salt, sugar, honey,water and vanilla together.
4. Stir and cook till the sugar dissolves completely.
5. Make a well in the oats mix and add the liquid ingredients and mix thoroughly.
6. Transfer into the prepared baking tray and bake for 30 minutes.
7. Stir in between with a wooden spoon to ensure even browning.
8. Once its cool, add the chocolate chips to the granola and store in an air tight container.
9. Serve with milk or just snack it up

Note:

Remember the step which said “Stir in between with a wooden spoon”? Well, they really mean it! Luckily, the enlightening happened before the entire batch was burnt.

And now I know why Granola has a spot in every food blogger’s menu. Its easy and economic to make at home and the result feels like a luxury item :)

Sending this to Taste Junction’s Drive Me Nuts event too.