Warm and Fruity Granola

In my post about our visit to Asheville, I told you about our stay at the Oakland Cottage Bed and Breakfast. Every morning we came down to a gourmet meal of eggs, fruit, bacon or sausage. There was always some kind of warm dish with fruit. One of my favorites was a warm granola. It was soft and steamy, not crunchy like regular granola, but it had the crunch of nuts in it. I decided to recreate it, and it was so good I've made it twice. I had no recipe, so I improvised. I started with a box of granola cereal as the base, so I was not making this completely from scratch. I love when you can make something "semi-homemade" and it turns out delicious. Here's my take on a yummy warm and fruity granola.

Start out by preheating your oven to 350 degrees.

Decide how much you're going to make, how many people you're cooking for, and pick a baking dish that's suitable. I used a 1-quart glass pyrex dish with a lid, to make a breakfast for my husband and me, and perhaps leftovers the next day. Fill it about halfway with a granola cereal. I used the oat and cinnamon version, without extra nuts and fruit, because I wanted to add those myself.


I wanted the crunch of nuts, so I added pecans and sliced almonds. I chopped the pecan halves coarsely.


To give your nuts even more crunch, you can toast them in the oven. I spread them out on a cookie sheet and baked them for 10 minutes. Make sure you watch them so they don't get too brown. You can even stir them around after five minutes.


Rinse strawberries and blueberries, then cut the stems off the strawberries and slice them smaller. You can use any fruit that's in season: peaches, blackberries, plums, pears.


I'm all about using as little dishes as possible, so I add everything right into the baking dish and mix it together there. Drizzle some honey over it to taste. I also added some fruit juice and water, maybe 1/4 or 1/2 cup, so that it would steam nicely in the oven. You want the granola to soften up.


Give it a good stir, put the lid on it, and bake. I think I baked it for 15 minutes, stirring it once and replacing the lid.


And here you have it. Warm, yummy, and it smells so good. This is it for a breakfast. You want it for dessert? Then add a scoop of vanilla ice cream!