Life Lately | Salted Maple Pecan Olive Oil Granola |

Hot diggity I am soooo done. After going on 12 straight days of working I am ready to unplug, lounge, and just plain old hang this weekend. Do you have a perfect Saturday morning? This is mine: I wake up around 9 am (because I can some how miraculously sleep until that time), make a homemade latte, and curl up on the couch to watch my favorite shows from the week. Parenthood! Nashville! You’re back! (Ssshh don’t tell me what happened.) Then I walk to the farmer’s market and load up on all sorts of goodies for the week. After that I come back home and tackle some sort of household project that has been on the back burner forever. This weekend it’s switching over my winter wardrobe and purging my closet. I’m feeling a major purge and considering doing an online sale of some lightly used items. Would you be into that? Anyway back to the weekend- I then round out the day with a sweaty workout and dinner with good friends. That is exactly what is going down tomorrow and I could not be more excited.

I’m closing the week with an insanely good granola recipe . This was my first time using olive oil as the fat in my granola, and I gotta say- I love it. The flavor is nothing like you would imagine. This will be part of my perfect Saturday, too! Thank you all so much for your support on yesterday’s post. I’m so thrilled you’re just as excited as me about the series. Here’s to a wildly relaxing weekend!

Salted Maple Pecan Olive Oil Granola adapted from Food52

• 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cup raw sunflower seeds, hulled
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut chips
• 1 cup raw pecans, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup raw pecans, left whole or coarsely chopped
• 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Place oats, sunflower seeds, coconut, pecans, brown sugar and salt in a bowl and mix until well combined. Mix together syrup and olive oil in a measuring cup. Pour over dry ingredients and stir well to combine.

Spread granola mixture in an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Transfer to oven and bake, stirring every 10 minutes, until granola is toasted, about 45-60 minutes (mine took closer to 55 minutes).

Remove granola from oven and  let cool completely before serving. Can be stored in an airtight container up to one month.