Banana Granola

Oh granola... how I hate... love... am confused by you!

Granola-sounds so sweet, so innocent, so healthy... but it LIES! I'm not sure what granola's story is... maybe it started out as a healthy concoction but over time has transformed into a sugar bomb... or maybe secret agent spies were strategically placed around America in hopes to confuse the general public into thinking granola was healthy when it never really was... or maybe-just maybe granola tastes sooo freakishly amazing that we all started lying to ourselves and telling ourselves it was good for us! 

No matter how the granola = healthy equation ever got started-the truth is beginning to come out: (generally speaking) granola was not, is not, cannot be healthy! (Until now-that 'cannot' is going to be changed!)

Most granola starts out with great ingredients-oats, seeds, nuts, dried fruit, etc. but then the fat fairy (ya know-the same one that created Cold Stone Cake Batter Ice Cream and Applebee's Spinach Artichoke dip) came along and dumped in more sugar and oil than you should consume in a week! Now-don't get me wrong, there are plenty of great granola companies out there that supply us with great tasting, healthy granola...but most boxes of granola that line our grocery store shelves are not acceptable to the health conscious individual. 

Pop quiz! What has over 400 calories, 10 grams of fat and 26 grams of sugar? A doughnut? No... Snickers? Nope... If you guessed 1 cup of granola from one of the most popular cereal companies in America (yes-Quaker) you would be correct! That old man on the front of the package may look innocent-but I know he has a secret agenda to make us all chubby!

face of love? I think not!

So what's a granola lovin' girl to do? Make her own healthy/low calorie/high fiber/high protein granola of course! And that's exactly what I did! This granola will blow the roof off your store bought variety (both in taste and nutritional stats!) You can customize it to fit your personal taste buds and my tried and true method is basically fool-proof!

Here we go!

If you want-you can change this up by adding different flavorings/extracts or adding in 1/4 cup nut butter (I really like adding caramel flavoring!)

You can use any mixture of 6 cups of dry components-coconut, fiber one cereal, oats, etc.

Ingredients:
-1 ripe banana

-1 egg white

-1/4 cup sugar free maple syrup

-1/2 cup sugar (or any sugar substitute)

-1 TBSP. flavoring of choice (vanilla, almond, caramel-the sugar free coffee syrups work amazing!)

-Total of 6 cups dry ingredients

Directions:
1. Blend all wet ingredients in a blender/food processor 

2. Add them to dry ingredients and stir until all is wet

3. Add to a cookie sheet and bake on 200* stirring every 20 minutes (will take about 2 hours for a crispy granola)

4. Enjoy on top of yogurt, with smoothies, as a quick snack or even in a bowl covered in milk!

This granola is full of big clusters - not those little crumbles that some other granola is full of!