My husband likes to eat cereal as a late night snack.  I am not a big snacker myself.  Years ago, when I was living by myself, a girlfriend who was staying with me for a while stood in front of my open refrigerator and complained “You have no snack food!  If a person gets stoned and needs to munch on something all they’ll find in here are some raw beets”.  It’s true.  Don’t get stoned at my house.  For one thing it will annoy me, and for another, there is nothing to snack on except for my husband’s private, expertly curated cereal collection.

Snack food,  cereal included, is astonishingly expensive for food of dubious nutritional value.  Food is supposed to have vitamins.  If it comes in a container that boasts that it contains vitamins you have to be skeptical of its inherent value.  Oh my god, I just realized that I sound like my mother!  Hi mom!  It’s not that I am so very frugal or health conscious.  When I spend too much money on food I really like it to be fancy cheese.  Gourmet cheese does not yell about its vitamin content.  It just sits, proud and stinky and confident that it is worth 30 dollars a pound.  I should also be honest about the fact that I love weirdly flavoured chips.

I decided recently that I should learn how to make granola.  It is not difficult, but since I don’t really even like cereal it did take a few tries to come up with one that even I think is delicious.  This granola is really good.  It is crispy, nutty and not too sweet.  It is so good that I bag it up once it cools, and give it to my husband with stern instructions that he should hide it from me.  My husband prefers this granola over store bought cereal as well!  Hooray!

MAPLE NUT GRANOLA

• 3 cups oats
• 1 and 1/2 cups pecans
• 1 cup coconut
• 1/2 cup flax seeds
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 1 cup pepitas
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp salt
•  3/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup coconut oil

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. On a very large baking sheet, use your hands to thoroughly mix all of the dry ingredients together.  Whisk the oil and maple syrup together and then add it to the dry ingredients using your hand to moisten everything.
3.   Spread the mixture out evenly and  bake for 3o-40 minutes at 350.  Stir after first 20 minutes.   Keep your eye on it.  The nuts and oats should be toasted, but you do not want the sugar to burn.  If you have decided to use honey instead of maple syrup, be aware that it burns faster.
4. Allow the granola to cool completely before storing in a sealed container.

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