Crunchy Granola ** Improved for 2009 **

Now Cholesterol Lowering too!

I'm constantly changing how I make things - improving each time I hope.  My original Granola was big on taste and less about health, the second version was better. Now for 2009, this recipe is the best tasting, most healthy and helps lower cholesterol.

Yummy Granola

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of rolled oats
• 1/2 cup of wheatgerm
• 1/4 cup of dried cranberries
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinammon

• 1/4 cup of honey or maple syrup
• 1/4 cup of oil
• Splash of water

Directions:
Pre-heat your oven to 100c/220f.

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Combine the honey, water and oil and pop into the microwave for 1 minute - don't worry too much about the exact measurements but you should have about 3/4 of a cup of liquid. The mixture is much easier to handle when it's warm and the honey is a lot less sticky.

Mix the liquid into the dry ingredients and stir well until everything is well coated.

Spread out evenly on a baking tray and pop into the oven for 60 minutes.

Remove and allow to cool before storing in an air-tight jar; as it cools it will get crunchy. It should hold for quite a while but I'll bet it doesn't last that long.

Enjoy with natural yoghurt.


Variations:
Use 1/4 cup of apple juice instead of the water and reduce the honey to 1/4 cup.
Add 1/2 cup of mixed seeds [sunflower, flax, sesame, poppy]
Try different fruit, delicious too!

Crunchy or fine?
If you want large nuggets of granola, then follow the steps above when cooking but however if you prefer a finer granola with smaller/less nuggets then remove from the oven every 15 minutes and give it a stir through to break the mixture up.

TOP TIP!
For extra crunchy, don't stir at all during cooking; turn the oven off after 45 minutes but leave the granola in the oven to cool overnight.  As the oven cools slowly the granola will crunch up much nioce than allowing it to cool on the counter top.