Olive Oil Granola with pecans, almonds, and dried blueberries

Olive Oil Granola - updated 1/25

freezes well.  

I started with Melissa Clark's Olive Oil Granola recipe in NYT Cooking... I read lots of comments, and other recipes.  You could use pumpkin seeds; any nuts; any dried fruit.  My store didn't have coconut chips so I just used unsweetened coconut flakes and it worked great.   Dried blueberries are nice.   The granola stayed crisp in a tupperware at room temp, for days (the key is the addition of the egg white).   You will make this once and then adjust your ingredients (you may want more salt). 

3 C rolled oats (old fashioned oats - not quick cooking) 

1 1/2 C chopped pecans

1/2 C sliced almonds

3/4 C raw unsalted sunflower seeds  

1 C unsweetened flaked coconut 

1/2 - 3/4 C maple syrup

1/2 C extra virgin olive oil 

1/4 C brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1/2 tsp cardamom  - or a portion of cardomom sugar in place of a bit of the brown sugar

1 egg white, whisked with about 1 T water  (this helps crisp the granola and promotes little clumps forming) 

ADD AFTER BAKING GRANOLA:  1/2 C dried fruit - unsweetened blueberries or cherries (I haven't tried diced dried apricot yet)

1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2.  Mix dry ingredients in very large mixing bowl.

3.  Combine syrup, oil, sugar, salt, cinnamon, cardomom, and egg white in large pyrex mixing cup.  Whisk well.  Pour over the granola mixture and mix well.   Spread out onto the sheet pan. 

4.  Bake for 60-70 minutes until it looked toasted.  Remove pan and stir a couple of times while it is baking, but towards the very end, do not stir, so that you have lots of nice clumps.  Remove from the oven and let granola cool completely in the pan without stirring. 

5.  Stir in the dried blueberries and put into containers.  Or, don't add fruit until you are going to serve it.  This requires some experimenting because it's a priority to keep the granola crispy.   We've been eating this lately with milk or homemade yogurt - yum.  

2024 Christmas - a big hit with the Beutlers and we went through 2 batches. 

xo

Mom