Nana's Granola

My Nana and I chat on the phone frequently about recipes...she is a wonderful wife and inspires me to make yummy treats for my husband since I always watched her do that for her husband, my Papa!!  oh how I miss them.

Nana's Granola Bars (she adapted them from Ina Garden, and I adapted them a bit from her)

Ingredients:

• 2 c old fashioned oatmeal
• 1 c sliced or chopped (I prefer chopped) raw almonds
• 1.5 c shredded coconut (unsweetened or sweetened)
• 1/3 c freshly ground flax seed (grind in a rinsed coffee grinder...if you don't grind flax the nutritional benefits are not even close to as wonderful)
• 2/3 c honey
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 c brown sugar
• splash of vanilla
• dash of salt
• chopped up dried fruit or dark chocolate chips or whatever you want.  I like using dried cranberries...and lots of them (1 1/2 c)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350.  Line a pan with foil or parchment paper so you can lift the granola out of the pan when finished.
• Toss first 3 ingredients together in the lined pan and bake for 10 minutes, stirring twice until lightly toasted.  Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir in the flax. 
• Reduce oven to 300
• Place butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Cook and stir for just a minute (or it will get too hard) and pour over the toasted oatmeal mixture.  Add fruit, chocolate, whatever random things you want, last.
• Pour it all into the same pan you used to toast the dry mixture.  Press mixture evenly into the pan.  Bake for 25-30 minutes until light golden  brown.  Cool and break or cut into pieces. 

It is definitely not your typical "chewy" granola bar...but it is sooo yummy, and very healthy too.  JD likes it with yogurt or milk.  I like it plain.  I totally ate 3/4 of this recipe at my desk one day.