Chocolate? Granola? Oh yeah.

Isn’t that pretty! I’ve been waiting for two years for this clematis to bloom, and now my patience has been rewarded! When I first put him in the ground, he was a sickly plant and last year he hardly grew at all, and honestly, I thought it had died.  So it was a great surprise when this vine started climbing out of nowhere this spring, and now look! Fantastic!

So the other day I started cooking and baking things to take camping.  We’re going for a week and things like homemade cookies, quick breads and granola are staples for us while we’re in the woods.  Yesterday I was thinking about making granola, and I decided to look around at Key Ingredient to see if there were any new recipes floating around that I should try.  First of all, if you haven’t checked out Key Ingredient yet, you really should- and you should contribute to it as well.  It’s so easy to search for a recipe- and to me the absolute best part is that there are no ads- at least yet.  I don’t know about everyone else, but when I’m looking for a recipe online, the ads and pop-ups on all the sites drive me batty- and they slow my computer down.  Key Ingredient is one of those places that is only going to get better the more people join it and add recipes.  And did I mention that it’s not specifically for bloggers?  It’s a great tool to use to share your recipes with others- and a great way to store your recipes online.  You can then direct your friends and family to your Key Ingredient cookbook to find a particular recipe- and you can access them when you’re travelling, without any trouble whatsoever.  I definitely plan on putting a lot more recipes into it soon.

But let me talk about this granola that I found at Key Ingredient.  I’m pretty happy with my standard granola recipe, and Andy is really happy with my standard granola recipe.  But when I saw the words French Chocolate Granola, I was very intrigued.  I looked at the recipe, wrote down the few ingredients I didn’t have and hustled off to the store.  I was most definitely going to make this granola.

It was very easy.  In a large bowl I combined rolled oats, unsweetened coconut, and chopped almonds.  Then I added a little sugar and a pinch of salt, and then turned to the stovetop.  In a sauce pan I combined 3/4 cup of clover honey and oil until they were warmed.  I poured this onto the mixture in the bowl and stirred well to combine it all.  I turned it all out onto a sheet pan and spread it around evenly. Into the oven it went, where I baked it for about 40 minutes- or until most of the coconut was toasty looking and the granola smelled amazing.  As it cooled on the counter I would stir it up once in a while to keep it from sticking together, and then once it was totally cool I had a fantastic crunchy granola.  The chocolate part came in then.  I very finely chopped up a bar of Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet Chocolate and tossed that with the granola.   I knew this was going to be great.  The honey sweetened oats, coconut, and almonds married perfectly with the bittersweet chocolate.  I sprinkled a bit on some organic strawberry-vanilla yogurt and sampled the most decadent granola to come out of my kitchen.  Talk about delicious!  And did I mention how easy it was?  I immediately transferred the granola to a large container and put it in the freezer so that I wouldn’t be tempted by it before taking it camping.  Wow!  I’ll likely still make my fruit and nut granola too, but that French Chocolate Granola…it’s really, really good.

So I’ll leave you with a picture of the granola.  Normally, this is where I share the recipe, but since I found the recipe over at Key Ingredient, and I really want you to check it out and give it a try, I’m going to direct you to the recipe there for French Chocolate Granola.