Granola 1

Here is my recipe for perfect and good granola. It makes quite a bit. I fill my two 'towers' of granola. It's nice to put ontop of cereals, frozen yogurt, or soy ice cream.I got it from the November 2010 Family Fun and did a few twists to it to make it healthier and this is what i came up with.

4 cup rolled oats (also called old fashioned oats)
1 cup wheat germ (optional, you can replace with 1 c. rolled or quick oats)
1 cup. chopped walnuts or silvered almonds
1 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. salt

1/3 c. apple sauce (or apple concentrate)
1/3 c. honey                  or for all three of the 1/3 liquid ingredients, you can
1/3 c. water                  put in about 2/3 c. to 1 cup of apple concentrate. it also counts as the sugar


Heat the oven to 300 degrees. In a large bowl, stir together oats, wheat germ, nuts, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the apple sauce, honey water (apple concentrate if choose to). Toss the mixture until it is well combined, then spread it evenly on a cookie sheet or high rimmed casserole dish. I find it easier to do it in a casserole dish because when you stir it, it won't go over the sides.
Bake the granola until lightly browned, about 1 hr, stirring every 15 minutes. Keep the granola away from the sides of the pan because that makes them burn. If you want to, you can add some dried fruit like:
cranbereries
blueberries
raisins
cheeries
pineapple
papaya
mango