Saturday, January 8, 2011

Cranberry pumpkin granola

Delicious. Easy. Hearty. Full of classic cold-weather flavors like maple syrup, cranberries, and pumpkin. Did I mention delicious? I kept grabbing handfuls of it while it was cooling on the trays.

My family loves granola so this recipe has been on my "to cook" list for a couple of months. And who doesn't like granola? One of the few foods to become an adjective. (Are there others? Cheesy maybe, but not "cheese" itself. Hmmm...sorry...Brain is off on a tangent.)


Cranberry pumpkin granola (makes about 6 cups)
Adapted very slightly from We Are Not Martha

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup maple syrup
4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup roasted, unsalted sunflower seeds
1 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup shredded coconut
two pinches (a heaping 1/8 teaspoon) ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 300ºF. Melt the butter, pumpkin, and maple syrup in a saucepan. Cook on medium for about 5 minutes.

While that’s cooking, combine oats, sunflower seeds, cranberries, nuts, and coconut in a large bowl. Mix it all together. Pour the pumpkin syrup over the oat mixture. Add the spices and salt. Stir everything together.

Butter 2 baking sheets. Divide granola on the two sheets, spreading into one layer.

Bake for 40-45 minutes until lightly browned. For best results, make sure you stir the granola every 15 minutes or so, and rotate the pans if needed. Cool. Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Pumpkin is one of my favorite things to sneak into foods where it's not expected, but I never thought about the granola. I would've thought it'd make it mooshy, but I'm going to give this a try.

    Do you have any trouble finding sunflower seeds that aren't stale? I've had terrible luck for awhile now...

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  2. I was surprised, but the granola had a great texture. Not mushy at all. Hmmm...sorry about your sunflower seeds. I buy my sunflower seeds from Whole Foods. No problem so far.

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