Many years ago when we really started to evaluate the quality of foods we ate one of the most challenging things for my husband to “give up” was cereal. There was a time when I counted 10 boxes of mostly “healthy” cereal in our pantry. Although some cereals have a health halo around them there are many reasons why it is not the perfect, healthy food. For my hub’s sake, I’ve tried multiple ways to improve the health of cereal and this Heavenly Granola just might be the way. Although my favorite way to eat it is just plain, like trail mix, he really enjoys it with milk. The beauty of it is it is flexible, so if you don’t like one of the ingredients, add more of the ones you do.

Heavenly Granola

8 cups rolled oats
1 ½ cup almonds, chopped
3 cups walnuts or pecans, chopped
1 cup raisins
1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1 cup chia seeds
2 tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp water
1 cup honey
1 cup coconut oil
½ tsp sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Pour oats, nuts, chia seeds, raisins, and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl.
3. In another bowl pour oil, honey, water and vanilla and mix it well.
4. Pour it over all the other ingredients until they are all well coated.
5. Pour onto cookie sheets in thin layers and put in oven for 7 minutes. Take out and toss to make sure it does not stick on cookie sheets, put in oven again for 7 minutes and do the same thing again to total 21 minutes.
6. Let granola dry before storing.