A granola that goes with everything

Growing up, I used to live within walking distance from two Trader Joe's. In college, TJ's wasn't nearly as easily accessible, so I would begrudgingly shop at Whole Foods whilst dreaming of eventually living near a TJ's again. But WF grew on me. Now I have the opposite problem: I have a TJ's close to where I work, but I miss WF an awful lot. 

So yea, I'm one of those people who happily shells out my dough to Whole Paycheck. But I really don't think that their prices are unreasonable. The produce at WF is always fresh and high quality, so if you just shop the sales, you'll get prices that comparable to TJ's/Giant and your produce won't spoil as easily.

And WF has some pretty snazzy sales. See case in point above. I went out of my way for necessities at WF the other day and discovered their trail mix bar, which lets you mix and match from a variety of options for only $6/lb. So theoretically I can buy a pound of almonds and spend only $6. Pray tell, where else can you get almonds for cheaper than that?

So I loaded up on a fantastic selection of nuts and seeds to make this delicious Saffron Orange Granola. It pairs well with yogurt and oatmeal, and can pretty much supplement any breakfast. 

I stumbled on this combo on another blog but they didn't list volumes, only ingredients, so I just threw together reasonable proportions of the suggested components and went with it. Note that you don't need to be accurate with any of the proportions that I've written, since I BS'd them and the granola still turned out great.

SAFFRON ORANGE GRANOLA

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 Tbsp orange zest
• 1/8 cup honey
• 1/8 cup olive oil
• 20 saffron threads, crushed
• Dash of salt, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg
• 2 cups of nuts/seeds: cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds (I used maybe 1/3 almonds and equal portions of everything else)
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/4 cup each of dried cranberries and shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 425F. In saucepan on low heat, add OJ, zest, honey, olive oil, saffron, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cook until gently bubbling, then remove from heat.

Add nuts/seeds and oats into the pot with the wet ingredients and mix well. Line baking sheet with foil and grease with cooking spray. Spread mixture in a thin layer on the foil and bake, mixing it around every 5 minutes or so to help it toast evenly.

After about 20 minutes, your granola should be all toasty and done. Wahoo.

Stir in your cranberries and coconut. Let cool and store in an airtight container.

Add it to your oatmeal like I did here! Or with yogurt like I did in the very first picture of this post. Or sprinkle some on top of a hearty stack of pancakes. Whatever you like, this will pair with it fantastically.