Nutty Northwest Crunch

This week I found myself with plenty of bread still on hand and since the weather is starting to shape up and get sunnier I wanted to create a quick breakfast food and snack fit for warmer weather. So, I came up with this granola, a Northwest twist on an old childhood favorite of mine.

As a child I loved to cook too, and I had a great book called "Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook". It has a lot of healthy, simple recipes that kids can make in it. As an adult, I still use a lot of the ideas in it! And, soon when Adam's old enough he can make some of the recipes out of it too. You can tell that I made granola a lot because that page is very worn and stained!

Since I had a lot of hazelnuts and large flaked coconut leftover from our Farmer's Tea baking days, I thought I'd create a new granola out of those ingredients and other things I had on hand. Here is the recipe as well as some photos of the steps along the way:

Northwest Hazelnut Coconut Granola:

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup Scottish oatmeal or wheat germ
1/2 cup finely chopped hazelnuts
1/2 cup coconut
1 1/2 to 2 cups hazelnut butter (homemade or store bought)
1/2 cup honey
2-4 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoons coconut extract or vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 300 F.


1. First, I made some hazelnut butter by blending in my food processor 2 cups of hazelnuts and a teaspoon or so of salt. I had to let the processor run for quite a bit until the nuts were well ground and started to form a paste or butter. Then, I put the mixture in a bowl and added a tablespoon or two of canola oil to moisten the mixture. Above is a photo of my hazelnut butter.


2. Mix the oats, Scottish oats or wheat germ, chopped hazelnuts, and coconut together in a 13x9 baking pan. (As shown above).

3. In a bowl, mix together the hazelnut butter, honey, canola oil, coconut extract or vanilla and salt. Pour this mixture over the oat mixture and use a rubber spatula to combine thoroughly.

4. Bake the pan of granola in the oven for 40-45 minutes. Mine was done at 40 minutes.

5. Take the pan out of the oven and mix the granola with a metal spatula to break up. Let it cool and then break up further if desired.

It makes a great snack and cereal! Enjoy!