Holiday Breakfast: Gingerbread Granola

This is going to be a short post because I only have a matter of minutes until my dad, brother, mom and Shawn come over. I am actually hosting Christmas Eve dinner at my tiny one-bedroom apartment. I've been running around like crazy for the past 3 days cooking and baking up a storm. I made ham and cheese dip, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, spinach and cranberry salad, peanut butter pie, and pumpkin mousse pie for this dinner. My dad is bringing an 8 lb briskett all the way from Minnesota. My dad makes the best briskett so yeah. pretty excited!

Along with that I have been making up a little goodie basket for Shawn's family. Once again I was an overachiever and a little ambitious in all I wanted to make. I couldn't decide so I made small batches of a bunch of different things. I made homemade caramel puff corn, peanut butter fudge, peppermint fudge brownies, peanut pretzel bark, dark chocolate buckeyes, gingerbread trees, snowflake cut-outs, and iced pumpkin cookies. Yes, I am indeed crazy. But its cute because they all get their little bag with a small ornament, tag and ribbon :)

So this post...I actually did come up with a gingerbread granola! After making this I decided that a gingerbread oatmeal would be good too...but another day. Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

Gingerbread Granola
Dame Good

Ingredients:

4 cups instant oats
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
12 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup pureed pumpkin
1/4 cup molasses
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoons ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400F. In a medium bowl combine oats, flax seeds, wheat germ, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, sugar and salt. In another bowl combine all of the rest of the ingredients (wet). Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix well.

Spread combined mixture on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 15 minutes. Stir granola and break up large chunks. Bake again for 15 minutes or until golden and crunchy.