Simple Homemade Granola: Perfect for Fall

I don't know about the weather where you are, but here, it's cold and rainy. T and I refuse to turn the heat on in the house this early in the season (I mean, it's North Carolina...we were kayaking in shorts and bathing suits on Saturday), and sitting in a chilly house can get a little depressing.

Instead of crawling into bed with a book (or my computer in order to watch back episodes of 30 Rock) on this dreary day, I decided to make granola as the first step in a slow process that involves me eventually making homemade granola bars for T's lunch. Wow. How did I become a housewife so fast?

Just like salad dressing, granola can be whatever you want it to be. Here's my take on it:

Simple Homemade Granola

•  3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup slivered almonds (I ran mine through a food processor to chop them up)
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

1. Preheat the oven to about 250 degrees (my oven gets really hot, so I set mine to 240). Combine your dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, and your wet ingredients in a small mixing bowl.

2. Stir the maple syrup/vegetable oil mixture into the oats, and mix thoroughly.

3. Use a spatula to spread the mixture out in a thin layer on two nonstick baking sheets. Bake for an hour, and be sure to stir the granola two or three times throughout the hour so that it all takes on that lovely, toasty brown color.

That's it. This recipe is about as bare bones as you can get, with only coconut and almonds added to the oats and seasoning. But you can add raisins, craisins, banana chips, dried apricots, chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, peanut butter chips (I love chips)...the list of possibilities is pretty much endless.

This granola smelled so good while cooking that I gave serious though to crawling into the oven this afternoon. Maybe it was chillier in the house than I thought, but, either way, it was just so warm and, and, and...cinnamon-y in there that it really was tempting.