Quinoa Granola

Still working my way through a large Zip-Loc bag of frozen cooked quinoa. So far I've made quinoa pizza and a quinoa stuffed artichoke in my quest to work more of this high-protein grain into my vegetarian daughter's diet.

Today I went on a hunt for a homemade granola recipe. I like granola, but hate when it's teeth-shatteringly crunchy and I have to take a break from chewing because my jaw is killing me. As usual, I looked at about 20 recipes on the Internet, used the ideas I liked, changed most of the ingredients, and came up with this.

Granola with Quinoa
1/2 cup each sliced almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries
1 cup cooked quinoa
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup corn syrup
2 cups oats (I used equal parts steel cut and rolled oats)
4 Tbsp. butter
4 Tbsp. canola oil
1 tsp. kosher salt

Melt butter and add oil. Mix in all other ingredients. Pile onto a greased baking sheet and spread out, leaving some clumps. Bake at 275 degrees for 20 minutes, stir, and bake another 10 minutes. Keep doing this (it may take a couple more 10-minute intervals) until it's golden brown. Cool on baking sheet.

Serve this as a cereal with milk, or as a yogurt topping, which my kids love. Or be like my son Sean and eat it straight out of the bag because you're a teenager and you are perpetually starving. And stay tuned for tomorrow's post about a super delicious recipe using this super delicious granola.