Seedy, nutty, hippie granola

My cooking at the moment is focused on clearing out my pantry and buying as few new ingredients as possible. It's partially an attempt to reduce the amount of food I waste, but mostly it's a cost-saving mechanism. This is all to say, man, I have a ton of random stuff in my cupboard/refrigerator. 

I've been wanting to make granola for awhile now, because it's so nice to have with a little yogurt and sliced banana in the morning. The internet is crazy for strange, weird, and wonderful granolas. People go way beyond the traditional old-fashioned oats and use quinoa, millet, farro, barley, chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, and on and on and on.

Red quinoa, wheat germ, flax seeds, and millet

Birdseed, right? It's total birdseed. I don't blame you for your skepticism.

Thanks, Courtney! I love the Silpat you got me for Christmas.

Fresh out of the oven. Mmm, crunchy cinnamony goodness.

So, here's my contribution to the litany of granola entries. It's closer to the "all-but-the-kitchen-sink" end of the spectrum, so far as the number of ingredients in it. I think you're totally within your rights to leave now and find a simple recipe that requires only a handful of ingredients. But man, you'd be missing out!

Update: I tried it with strawberries this morning and they were a much better addition than banana. 

Seedy, nutty, hippie granola

(makes 4-6 cups?)

Ingredients

1/2 cup red quinoa, rinsed (no need to dry it off though)

1/4 cup flax seeds

1/2 cup raw millet

1/4 cup wheat germ

1 cup steel-cut oats

1 cup quick oats (old-fashioned rolled oats works too!)

1 cup raw slivered almonds

1/2 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds; you could use sunflower seeds too)

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup coconut oil, melted

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)

1 cup dried cranberries (or your favorite dried fruit)

1/2 cup roasted coconut chips (or add 1/2 cup of unsweetened coconut flakes to the dry ingredients above)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Put parchment paper or a silicon liner on a large baking sheet.

In a large bowl, mix the first ten ingredients together. In a separate bowl, stir the wet ingredients together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir around until everything is very well-mixed. 

Dump out the granola onto the baking sheet. Bake in the oven about 45-55 minutes, until the granola is nice and brown. Be sure to to stir around the granola every ten minutes or so, to avoid burning the granola. 

Let the granola cool completely. It will get crunchy after it's cooled. Mix in the cranberries and coconut chips. 

Serve with some yogurt and sliced banana, strawberries or blueberries. Store in an airtight container for at least a couple of weeks.