Homemade Granola with Pumpkin Seeds!

I made this granola on Thursday evening past and it was so easy and filled our home with the sweet aroma of maple and all its goodness! I can't wait for Roy to eat it all so I can make more. He's decided it's his "cookie jar" and I couldn't keep him out of it if I tried! He eats it by the handfulls.

I used all organic or all natural ingedients to have organic granola on hand. There is truly nothing better than homemade and making this just proves the point!

Dry ingredients:
5 cups rolled oats
1 cup hulled raw sunflower seeds
1 cup pumpkin seeds
¾ cup flax seeds
¾ cup light brown sugar - made my own from organic sugar and molasses
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. salt, natural grey sea salt

Wet ingredients:
¾ cup unsweetened apple sauce - from my own trees, so all natural.
1/3 cup brown rice syrup - I used fair-trade organic molasses
¼ cup honey - I used natural hazelnut honey spread
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, such as canola or safflower, mine was non-GMO

Set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Preheat the oven to 300°F.

In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients. Stir to mix well.

In a small bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients. Stir to mix well.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ones, and stir well.Spread the mixture evenly on two rimmed baking sheets. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until evenly golden brown. Set a timer to go off every ten minutes while the granola bakes, so you can rotate the pans and give the granola a good stir; this helps it to cook evenly. (If you use a baking stone, like I have from The Pampered Chef, you don't have to stir or turn!!!) When it’s ready, remove the pans from the oven, stir well – this will keep it from cooling into a hard, solid sheet – and set aside to cool. The finished granola may still feel slightly soft when it comes out of the oven, but it will crisp as it cools.Scoop cooled granola into to a large zipper-lock plastic bag or other airtight container. I used a glass gallon jar. I love how pretty it looks on my counter, too! Store in the refrigerator indefinitely. We're eating ours so fast I don't have to worry about it not lasting long enough! ha!

Yield: about 10 cups

Obviously, you can substitute non-organic for any of the above ingredients. I was just pleased to have all the ingredients I used in organic. I'm in the process of purging my pantry of most chemcically treated foods for organic and/or natural products.

This granola is super with juice, cider, milk, soy milk and my fave: vanilla yogurt. I had it with applesauce yesterday and it was pretty tasty, too!

Enjoy!