Yummy Granola

The boy and I did some baking today, and made one of our favourite recipes - granola. The recipe is so easy, and so versatile that it goes from being fairly healthy to being a sweet treat! I have to admit that the version we made today was closer to dessert than a health food, but it's still really tasty!

The nice thing with this recipe is that because it's so easy, the boy really gets to help and pitch in. I normally give him a choice of what we're going to put in it, and he picks the different ingredients from what we have. Then it's a simple matter of sticking a measuring cup in, getting a full scoop and dumping it in the bowl. In fact the only things that I need to do are melt the butter and use the can opener. Everything else he takes care of - within reason of course. His favourite part, other than licking the spoon at the end, is getting to pat the mixture into the pan with his hands.

I've put the recipe below, I find that I need to cook them for about 22 minutes to get them just right - not too crisp, but nice and chewy. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 3 cups Quick Cooking Oats
• 14oz (414 ml) sweetened condensed milk (just under a can and a half)
• 2 tbsp butter, melted
• 3 1/2 cups of mixers (4 different items)
• i.e dried cranberries, raisins, papaya, almonds, chocolate chips, mini M&M's, coconut etc. (whatever combo sounds good to you)

Directions

1. Preheat over to 350
2. Grease a 9 * 13 pan
3. mix all ingredients together
4. press flat into pan
5. bake 20-25 minutes (when they are lightly browned on top you will have chewy, moist bars)
6. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then cut.

My 'helper' patting the granola into the pan