Family Gathering & Granola Recipe

This weekend we had a fun family gathering hosted by my niece, Natalie, and her family in Novato. One of the best parts about getting together with the family are the potluck dishes. This was my daughter's contribution, spoon cookies:

They're so adorable, I just love them. My sister, Pat, bought these spoon molds for Rachel during one of her trips to Europe. In the future, she'll be posting how to make them on her YouTube channel, KawaiiSweetWorld.

Below are some photos of our 4th of July party.

 Of course we had to do some crafting...

We played with stencils and paint.

The dish I brought to the party was homemade granola. I've been on a granola kick lately and decided to try and make it myself. I found this recipe (via Alton Brown) that I really like and I love that I can personalize it by using only the ingredients that I like!

Here's the version of the granola I made.

Ingredients

3 cups oatmeal

1 cup whole almonds

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup chopped pecans

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons honey

Directions

Preheat oven to 250 F degrees.

Line 18" x 13" jelly roll pan with parchment paper.

Combine oatmeal, nuts and brown sugar in a large bowl and set aside.

Combine oil, syrup, salt and honey in a small bowl.

Toss the oatmeal mixture with the wet ingredients.

Spread out granola mixture onto the pan and bake for one hour. Every 15 minutes mix the granola so that it can evenly brown.

Let it completely cool before storing. The granola will turn crispy once cooled.

Enjoy! 

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!