Crunchy Granola

I never would have though in a million years that my kids would love granola - but they do! I started making my own homemade granola mix for my kids a few months ago and they love it and ask for it all the time. Who knew??

This is a great idea for a snack for kids. You can make it healthy as you want it to be, it's good for any time of day (sometime I give it to them as their breakfast), no utensils are needed to eat it, and it can be totally portable as an on-the-go snack.

This past January I had all these ingredients in my pantry that were leftovers from baking my Christmas cookies. I was trying to think of a way to get rid of the stuff and free up cabinet space. I had this huge tub of vanilla flavored granola that I bought at Whole Foods, I bought it intending to put it in my yogurt but I never actually used it. So I took the ingredients that I had on hand, which was chocolate chips, flaked coconut, and some dried cranberries, tossed it all in with the granola and presented it to my kids enthusiastically as a new and exciting yummy treat. And it had chocolate in it! They loved it. Wow! I was blown away.

Now I make batches of it up all the time and keep it on hand in little Gladware containers for snack time. I make it up differently based on what I happen to have in the pantry. Sometimes I add different types of nuts, or seeds (already out of the shells so I don't have to help them eat it), dried fruits, and I always include a form of chocolate just to seal the deal.

All of these items can be found at any grocery store, but I love to buy ingredients at Whole Foods in their trail mix aisle. You can pick and chose from all kinds of grains and goodies and get very creative about what to put into your mix. They have the widest variety of dried fruits I have seen anywhere, and I like to find special things to incorporate like chocolate covered blueberries or dried cherries that serve as the "surprise" item that gets my kids excited about it.
Try this at home at least to just test it out and see if your kids like it as much as mine do. You may be surprised that your kids like granola!