Almond, Blueberry, and Maple Granola


Granola is always awesome, but it's very expensive to buy at the store. Making it at home is inexpensive and just takes a few minutes of active prep time, plus 80 minutes in the oven. For the blueberries, I buy fresh blueberries in massive quantities when they're in season and deeply discounted, then dry them. Typically I do this until I've got about a gallon dried total. If you don't have a dehydrator, you can either oven or sun dry them (If you've opted for sun drying, freeze them for 72 hours after they're finished to kill any possible insect eggs that may have been laid anyway and then store in the pantry). If you want some clumps, squeeze the mixture well once you've put it in the half sheet pan. Otherwise, it will be more like loose cereal.

4 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup each: wheat germ, wheat bran, flax seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup sliced almonds

1 cup dried blueberries

1/2 cup each: vegetable oil, maple syrup
 1/4 cup honey

Preheat oven to 250. Put together all of the dry ingredients except the berries in a large bowl. Whisk together the wet ingredients until well-combined (this takes a couple of minutes), then stir them into the dry until everything is well coated. Spread out on a half-sheet pan and put in the oven. Bake for 1h20m, stirring every 15 minutes (I use a timer b/c I often forget I'm cooking things). Mix in berries when it comes out of the oven. Let cool on a rack in the pan, then transfer to an airtight container. Makes a lot.

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