Crunchies Recipe (i.e. homemade Clean granola)

I haven't made my "regular" recipes for a few months now...since I did my juice fast.  My clean-eating granola, cookies, brownies, muffins, etc...  I've stayed pretty much raw as far as food prepared in-home.  But this week for some reason I find myself needing something snacky and reaching for sugar again.  Seriously...what IS it with me and sugar?!?  Once an addict...always an addict. 

So tonight I decided it was time to get back to my recipes and make something that will satisfy my snack-need but still be healthy.  I tend to use my blog as my own personal recipe book (which I guess it is!) but when I looked up my Crunchies (i.e. granola) recipe, it wasn't here!  This is the #1 recipe I've recommended to people over the past year + and I'm embarrassed to see it's missing from my blog.  Time to correct that!

I had originally posted it in the Recipes section and then was rotating the recipes out every 2 weeks.  If you take a look in there you can see that hasn't happened in awhile.  So I'm going to update the Recipe section a little and just put the links to the recipes that are posted throughout the blog, and then make sure the recipes I've already posted are all here again and accessible. 

Amy's Crunchies

I originally posted this recipe on 9/10/11 and this is what I wrote:

This granola recipe has become the #1 breakfast and snack food in my house.  We eat it in a bowl with milk, sprinkled over Greek Yogurt or in baggies as a snack.  The kids love it in their lunches at school.  I love it when I need something sweet in the middle of the day. 

I did, however, find this recipe on Tosca Reno's Eat-Clean Diet website, posted by one of her followers.  Boy am I grateful she did post it!  The original name for it was "Chocolate/PB Eat-Clean Granola" (who wouldn't love that!).  We changed the name to "Crunchies" because my kids won't eat things with certain names.  Granola is one of their forbidden words ...they won't touch it if it's granola. (I know - they're weird.  They also won't eat a sandwich if you call it a sandwich.  Call it peanut butter bread and they're all over it.)  So one day I called these Crunchies and they downed the entire tray!

Ingredients 

·   2 cups of Oats

·   4 Tablespoons crushed raw walnuts (or other nut of choice)

·   a few Tablespoons flax seeds

·   1 tsp chia seeds

·   2 Tablespoons all natural nut butter (any kind you like)

·   1 tsp pure vanilla

·   3 Tablespoons raw honey

·   3 Tablespoons Coconut Oil

·   1/2 c chopped dark chocolate (70% or higher)

 Instructions

1.      Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees.

2.      Mix the oats, walnuts, flax seed and chia seeds in a mixing bowl.

3.      In a separate bowl add the nut butter, coconut oil, honey and vanilla. Heat in microwave in 20 second intervals until melted. Stir until nice and creamy.

4.      Slowly add the wet mixture to the oats and fold gently until all oats are covered and a bit moist. Fold in the chopped dark chocolate (or dark chocolate chips).

5.      Place a sheet of parchment paper or tin foil on a cookie sheet. Spread the oatmeal mixture on the parchment paper nice and flat. Bake for 12 minutes and then flip and move the oat mixture around, then cook for another 12 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 30 minutes.

Makes approx 3 1/2 cups of granola.

Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 25 minutes

*My side notes: my family prefers when I make this with peanut butter and I usually add a little more than the recipe calls for.  My sister's family prefers it with almond butter.  Almond butter will make the granola come out darker.  Both taste great!  I double the recipe but pack it all onto one baking sheet so that it hardens into larger clumps, which make great snacks that are easy to hold. 

Serving suggestion: mix finished granola with other nuts, seeds, dried fruits and pretzels (if you're not going 100% clean) and make a trail mix.