Banana Bread Granola

Hey everyone! It has been a little while since I have put my blogging hat on. I talk all the time about how different I become in the winter. I feel like in all seriousness, there has to be some medical term for someone who can't stand cold/winter so much that they get grumpy, short tempered, and uncreative all winter long. Maybe I am seasonally bipolar? Anyway, I must say that I have been a good deal better this winter (probably because where I'm from winter seems to have missed us-in fact we have been having record high temps the past couple weeks! Hurray!) and I've been tackling projects right and left.

 I find it amazing how discovering little nuggets about our personalities can help us to become better and more productive people. For instance, I am a very task oriented person-I like to get things done and I almost feel depressed when I lack projects or if I have projects and I just don't do them. So with this information I realized that checklists are a great thing for me because it shows me what I need to do and gives me a timeline of when I ought to get it done, therefore making me productive and also happier. If you have never taken a personalities test before you totally should!

OK, now having said all that, one of the things that I have wanted to do is blog more and so, I put it on my to-do list, and what do you know, it has finally happened! I felt inspired to make this recipe the other day while looking at Whole Foods for a banana snack of some sort (I did a few days of the Banana Island diet in an effort to clear my skin-a journey that I will definitely be sharing about soon!) and I found these delightful banana chips (with nothing added). For some reason I thought, hey, this would be delicious in granola!

Of course the most important part of banana bread granola, is bananas! I thinly sliced up 2 ripe bananas and baked them in the over at 200 degrees for about an hour or until crunchy (you really have to watch them)

Meanwhile in sauce pan bring 1 cup of coconut sugar and 1/2 cup of water to a boil and then remove from heat.

Pour the water/sugar mixture over approx. 5 cups of rolled oats.

Stir to combine and sprinkle in a little cinnamon. Doesn't this look sooooooo good? Then you will just bake it at 350 for about 20 minutes or until the oats have become crunchy.

Banana Bread Granola

Makes Approx. 5 Cups

Ingredients:

2 Bananas

5 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup water

1 cup coconut sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1) Thinly slice bananas and place on a Silpat lined baking sheet and place in the oven at 200 degrees for about an hour or until the bananas turn hard and crunchy (be sure to keep an eye on them as they may easily burn)

2) In a sauce pan over medium heat, stir together the water and sugar and bring to a boil. 

3) Remove the sauce from heat once it begins to boil and pour it over the rolled oats.

4) Stir in the cinnamon and place in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees or until the oats or hard and crunchy.

5) Once the bananas and oats are done, take them out of the oven and allow them to cool. When they are done cooling, combine them together and store in a bag or jar until you are ready to eat! 

Nom nom.