Something Precious: PB & J Granola

I told you once that I love breakfast. It is so true. I also told you that we next to never eat cold cereal from a box. One of our favorite things to eat for breakfast is homemade granola. We have many delicious recipes for granola.

This is one I came up with, when I was looking for a new recipe and experimenting with a few new things. I wanted to see if you could use applesauce for part of the oil to make it lower fat. The result was delicious and it quickly became one of my children’s favorite granola recipes so far, only to be beaten by my chocolate granola and a granola recipe I grew up with. I will share those recipes later.

I call this recipe PB&J Granola, because it reminds me of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I should tell you I prefer a softer granola, because that is what I was raised with. I don’t really care much for the crunchy granolas, they are just too tough and chewy and I think there is more flavor in the soft stuff. That’s just my opinion. I understand that many people like it crunchy, so I have included directions to make it so. I hope you like it as much as we do, however you choose to make it.

Julie’s PB & J Granola

1 cup Agave Syrup (I like the brand Xagave best, but you could use another brand or even honey)

1 cup Peanut Butter

¼ cup Coconut Oil

2 individual cups of berry applesauce

8 cups Oatmeal

1 ½ cups Coconut Flakes

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Put the first four ingredients in a sauce pan on medium heat; mix till smooth. Add oatmeal and coconut flakes and stir well until thoroughly mixed.

Spread on a couple of cookie sheets or in cake pans. (If you want a crunchier texture, spread out in a thin layer on a 2-3 cookie sheets. For a softer granola, spread out granola in two cake pans in a thick layer.) Cook for 10 minutes; stir granola around in the pans with a spatula. Cook for 10 minutes more. Let cool.