Like most aging folks, I read up on nutrition and try to eat well. However, I am often perplexed about how to eat daily all the nuts, seeds, oils and fruits in the superfood category. You know the ones I mean: flax-seed meal, cranberries, olive oil, almonds, sesame seed, blueberries, sunflower seed, dark chocolate.  I can manage to get in a few each day, perhaps blueberries on my yogurt or chicken salad with cranberries. But each one, every day?

Homemade granola! I made granola several times while in high school and loved the fresh, crunchy taste. I decided to again find a base recipe and adapt it to include many of the superfoods. My adapted recipe is a work in progress but here is what I have so far. BTW, since I live in small town I order many ingredients online.

JJs Superfood Granola

• 3 cups rolled oats, uncooked
• 1/2 cup flax seed meal
• 1/2 cup any/all of the following seeds and nuts: sesame, sunflower, sliced almonds, walnuts, pepitas, pistachios, other
• 1 cup dried fruit, such as cranberries, raisins blueberries, cherries, coconut, or a mix.
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup honey (or more)
• 1/2 teas vanilla or other flavoring
• Other options: 1/2 cup PB2 powder, coconut flour or ?
• After baking, stir in 1 cup bran buds cereal, dark chocolate chips

Line a large baking sheet with parchment, set oven to 275 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients, Stir in olive oil, honey and vanilla.

Pat in baking sheet, bake for up to an hour. About half way through, stir. Too much stirring makes granola that is not clumpy (but still good).

After baking, stir in more goodies, including bran buds and chocolate chips or anything else that grabs you. Serve with milk or plain yogurt (my choice).

My only challenge: the granola is not as clumpy as I would like. After some online research, I reduced the baking temp and stopped stirring it so much, and it is getting better. I also read that regular peanut butter helps everything stick together. Will try that next.

This base recipe fills four 1 quart canning jars. I chow down a cup or more every morning and don’t eat again until mid-afternoon. I am super-fueled! The rest of the day I eat protein and veggies. I could eat it while on the road for breakfast and dinner! Also a great camping food.