Granola Junkie

I used to be a cereal addict. I would eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast every morning. About six months ago, I decided that it was time to shake up my breakfast routine. I started with plain yogurt with berries, granola and a bit of honey or agave nectar. I haven't turned back. Sorry cereal.

It never entered my mind to try to make my own granola. It seemed too complicated and involved. But, a few months ago, I came across a recipe for olive oil and maple granola on Food52. It's adapted from Early Bird Foods' best-selling Farmhand's Choice Granola. Early Bird is a small batch food producer located right here in Brooklyn.

The recipe is deceptively simple - a handful of ingredients mixed together. But that's also the beauty of it. I omitted the pecans since I'm allergic to nuts and I'm sure that you could add some of your favorite ingredients. After about 45 minutes, I opened the oven door to find oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and coconut flakes toasted golden brown. The aroma was sweet with a hint of salty. Once I tried it, I could not stop eating it. Seriously, Ed had to hide it from me.

One thing to note - after the granola is finished baking, don't let it sit around on the baking tray for too long, which is what I did. You want to transfer it to an air-tight container before the maple syrup and brown sugar congeals. Once it does, it's very hard to loosen the granola from the tray. If that does happen, just put the tray back in the oven for a few minutes to heat it up. Then you should be able to remove the granola easily.

If you haven't checked out Food52 before, you should. It's a great site founded by Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs. It's a "place where, together, we create cookbooks, take on food projects, debate food news, help others with our real-time food Q&A -- the Food52 Hotline -- and band together to support local food producers."

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