Making Granola

Have you seen the price of granola at the grocery store?  In our area a small bag of fancy granola can cost $5(!) so I did what any frugal person would do and decided to make my own (and it tastes much better than the store-bought stuff IMHO).  Here's my simply recipe for granola:

• Nuts (I buy a big bag of peanuts at the 99 Cent store, put them in a ziploc bag, then take a hammer to them until they are smashed into tiny pieces).  Put the smashed nuts in a big bowl.
• Oatmeal (I buy a huge box of old fashioned oatmeal--not the quick cooking kind--at Costco for about $7.  I put enough oats into the bowl to look proportional to the nuts about 3 to 1).
• I mix the nuts and oatmeal together then add brown sugar (again, add as much or as little as you want, I don't like super sweet cereal so I don't add much).
• Then I add cinnamon to the mix and stir everything up.  Some people like to add salt as well but I don't add any as the nuts are salty enough.
• In a separate bowl mix vegetable oil and maple syrup (I use about 1/2 cup of oil to 1/3 cup of maple syrup) then pour this over the oats and mix together.
• Put the granola in a big pan in a 275 degree oven.  I bake it about 1 1/2 hour, stirring often, you want it to be dry and flaky when done.
• Before I eat the cereal I add raisins or dates or bananas or any other sort of dried fruit I have on hand.

Sorry this recipe isn't more exact.  There are a lot of recipes for granola online and since I learned how to make this some years ago I just make it by what looks right.  Anyway it comes out really tasty and there are numerous variations you can make to the recipe (add other nuts and seeds, add other spices, etc) and best of all, it is super cheap to make at home compared to what you would pay in the store!