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GREAT GRANOLA about 6 cups from Jane Brody's Good Food Book, p. 508, Bantam Books, 1985

“Most supermarket varieties of granola are sickeningly sweet and laced with a fair amount of an undesirable fat, like coconut or palm oil. It is very easy to make your own granola. Placed in a jar with a tight-fitting lid, it will last for weeks in your cupboard (longer in the refrigerator), if you haven't devoured it long before then. You can also make half a recipe at a time, which might be best since even homemade granola is sufficiently rich to restrict it to the status of a garnish on cereal or yogurt rather than using it as the main cereal in your bowl. The ingredients should be available in your supermarket. If not, try a health or natural food store. For strict low-cholesterol diets, use margerine and leave out the coconut.”

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¼ cup butter or margerine, or a combination ¼ cup honey

3 cups rolled oats (regular or quick oatmeal, not instant) 1 cup shredded or flaked coconut (optional) 1 cup raw sunflower seeds 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup wheat germ (optional) 2/3 cup raisins

Heat the oven to 350 ºF. In a large oven-proof skillet or 9x13 inch baking pan, melt the butter and stir in the honey. (I put the pan in the oven while it is heating and that melts the butter.)

Stir in the oats, coconut, sunflower seeds, and cinnamon. Bake for 15 minutes, stirring several times. Stir in the wheat germ and bake 10 minutes longer, or until the mixture is lightly browned.

Remove from the oven, stir in the raisins, and cool completely before storing.

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Ingredient notes: Be flexible. Add what you like, leave out what you don't like. Its YOUR granola. You can add nuts, dried fruit, and anything else you would put in a healthy bowl of cereal or oatmeal.

I like to use old-fashioned oatmeal. The oats are cut into smaller pieces when they make quick oats.

Raw sunflower seeds: You might have to get creative to find these. In the grocery store, they are usually roasted, salted, and seasoned. If you bake roasted sunflower seeds in the oven that long, they might come out burnt, so add them with the wheat germ, or maybe even at the end with the raisins. Health-food stores probably carry raw sunflower seeds. At Kroger, they carry “waste free” sunflower seeds with the wild bird food. They are raw and out of the shells, so the birds don't make such a mess around the feeder. But, they come in a large bag and aren't cheap. Since they are packaged as food for animals they can't be paid for with foodstamps.

Wheat germ is what they take out of whole-wheat flour to make it white flour. It gives the granola a more complex flavor that adults may enjoy. Kids might just tell you it tastes funny. If you get a bite with lots of wheat germ, it can be a little bitter, so be sure to mix the granola before you serve it. Otherwise all the wheat germ will be on the bottom, and its not as tasty on its own.