Granola

Made my second (and even bigger) batch of homemade granola this morning since the cats woke me up earlier than usual and I had some time to kill. The "recipe" is still an evolving work in progress. You have to kind of taste and tweak it as you go along so I am not sure how many batches it will take to arrive at a standard formula. Maybe never?!

Anyways, for those who are interested:
10 C rolled oats
2.5 C combined of almonds and walnuts
3.5 C combined of sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds (I like my granola seedy but this was perhaps a bit too much and added a bit too much salt as well)
2 C raw unsweetened coconut (because I don't like the sweetened, but this could have gone up to about 3.5 or even 4 C)

~Combine the dry ingredients in one or two large bowls (I needed two)

Wet ingredients, heat over low heat until melted together into a sauce:
6.5 T butter
1.5 T vanilla
2/3 C brown sugar
1/2 C honey
1/3 C maple syrup
1 t kosher salt to start (add more to taste or depending on salty ingredients above)
1 T olive oil to start (add more to taste)

Pour sauce into the dry ingredients and mix until well coated. Now, this makes so much that I have to do the baking in several batches.

Spread evenly and not too thickly onto lightly greased cookie sheets and cook for ten minutes at 350 degrees. At ten minutes, stir to agitate the granola and move the edges and corners (which brown faster in my eperience) to the middle. Cook 10 more minutes until golden brown. You may want to check this second ten minutes a bit early to avoid over cooking. Remove from tray and let cool. Repeat with more batches until done.

At the end, you can add dried fruit to the mixture which I really love.