I'm not sure if this is considered a granola or not. It was crisped and toasty around the edges, and where the mixture was thickest, it was soft and chewy. I whipped it up from available ingredients, and baked it slowly. It was very satisfying and welcome after a tiring day.

Ingredients:

One diced large Apple, skin on

Not quite 1/4 cup All Purpose Flour

1/2 cup Brown Sugar +/-

1 tsp Kosher Salt

1 cup Uncooked Rolled Oats (organic)

1/2 cup Walnut Meats

2 tablespoons Vanilla (extract/flavoring)

3 tablespoons Evaporated Milk

Butter Cooking Spray

1 tsp Cinnamon

Cinnamon for dusting

Drizzles of Honey

Preparation:

Pre-heat oven to 350°f.

Place some foil in a pan and spray with butter spray, set aside.

This is pretty much a 'dump it all together, mix and bake' recipe.

Core the apple. In a large mixing bowl I diced the apple in about 1/4 inch pieces. The skin was left on for the fiber and nutrients.

Over that dump in the flour, brown sugar, salt, oats, walnuts, vanilla and milk. Mix as best you can, it will be a struggle at the beginning, but it will eventually combine.

Fold the mixture until everything was well moistened and mixed. It's not supposed to be very wet, not like cake or pancake batter. There's only just enough milk and dry ingredients to make it stick together.

Once this is mixed and wet from the milk and vanilla, *loosely* dump this in the prepared pan, don't pack it down. Using a light touch, move things around until the mixture is spread out in the pan.

Spray some butter cooking spray over this mixture, dust with cinnamon.

Pop this in the oven and turn the heat down to 250°. Bake for 2 hours. I took it out when it began smelling amazing.

The advantage to allowing it to bake so long is, everything softens that I like soft, like the walnuts and apple, flour and oats. Nothing was tough or raw.

Take from oven and turn out on a plate, set aside. Drizzle with honey or frost with a cream cheese icing if you'd like to. A simple apple fritter glaze is great for this as well.

You don't have to add frosting, icing or anything else to this. It's warm, very filling and delicious. I think you'll like it too. It was SO appley and cinnamony!