Chocolate Granola!

In my Christmas package from a good friend was a small container of Chocolate Granola. I had just bought a package of Naked Granola's Chocolate Flavored Granola. It was quite expensive and wasn't that fabulous. I was thrilled to get this as my friend is a cookbook writer and had found this recipe in Cooking Light Magazine.

I tasted it and it was better than the packaged kind. I was thrilled. She sent me the recipe. She adapted it for me - she omitted the pecans and made me a batch. My son is allergic to nuts and she knew that. I knew he wasn't allergic to seeds so I adapted it again and used pumpkin seeds for the pecans. It smells amazing when it bakes.

Here is the recipe as I adapted it -

                     *  Exported from  MasterCook  *

                             CHOCOLATE CRUNCH

Recipe By     : Cooking Light, December 2007
Serving Size  : 8    Preparation Time :0:00
Categories    :
  Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
                        Cooking spray
   3      cups          regular oats
   1      cup           Rice Krispies
     1/2  cup           packed brown sugar
     1/3  cup           pecans -- chopped
     1/2  teaspoon      salt
     1/4  teaspoon      ground cinnamon
     1/4  cup           honey
   2      tablespoons   canola oil
   1      teaspoon      vanilla extract
   2      ounces        bittersweet chocolate -- finely chopped
     1/2  cup           dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Cover jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Coat paper with cooking spray
Combine oats, rice cereal, brown sugar, chopped pecans, salt, and cinnamon in large bowl. Combine honey and canola oil in small saucepan over low heat; cook 2 minutes or until warm. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and chocolate; stir with whisk until smooth.
 
Pour chocolate mixture over oat mixture. Gently mix chocolate and oat mixtures until combined. Spread out mixture onto prepared jelly roll pan. Bake at 300 for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes. Cool completely on pan; stir in cranberries. Yield: about 8 cups.

(Portia's notes: I did not have parchment paper so baked the mixture on a cooking-sprayed large baking sheet. Also, I made a separate pan of the mix without the nuts to include in a package to Risa, whose son Trev is allergic to nuts. I chopped the chocolate by putting it in a bag and hitting it with a hammer -- my cook's technique!)

Portia, RE 12/13/07

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NOTES : Risa's notes:

Used old fashioned oats, pumpkin seeds for the pecans, brown rice syrup for the honey, and 1/4 cup blueberries and 1/4 cup Craisins for the dried cranberries. Also cooked it for 10 minutes extra as I wanted it to brown slightly more than it was at 20 minute time.