Once I made my own granola, I was blown away by how delicious it was. Maybe it was because I made it myself, or maybe it was because I took care in choosing the ingredients – but whatever the reason, I hadn't ever eaten granola so satisfying.
Granola is simple. Generally it is just oats (old fashioned rolled oats – not instant or steel cut) and nuts, covered in a mixture of sweet (sugar, molasses, honey) and fat (oil, butter) then baked for a short time.
Here are recipes for two different granolas to show you the range of fats and sugars you can use, as well as the different things you can throw in -- from nuts to dried fruit. These recipes yield a very small amount of granola. (I usually make about 3 or 4 times this much and it lasts for at least a month in an airtight container.)