Pumpkin Spice Granola

1/2 cup canned pure pumpkin
2 cups crispy rice cereal (I used Natures Path)
2 cups old-fashioned oats, dry
1/2 cup slivered or chopped almonds
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup unsweeted shredded coconut (optional)
4 tbls coconut oil
4-6 tbls maple syrup (I used 6 and it's not super sweet, but you can use less if you like)
4 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves, ground
1/4 tsp nutmet
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Feel free to play around with the oils and sweeteners if you prefer something different. I love maple with the spices, so that's what I went with. This does NOT make a very sweet granola! Also, you can sub out pumpkin pie spice for the cloves, nutmeg and ginger. You can add dried fruits, etc after the granola is cooled. You can also use all oats instead of using the crispy rice cereal, but I love the crunch. Plus it lightens it up a bit!

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees
Combine pumpkin, oil, syrup, sugar, salt and spices in a sauce pan and heat on low just until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Combine the oats, cereal, nuts and coconut in a large bowl. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and gently stir to combine. This will take a minute or two as the pumpkin will make the wet ingredients somewhat thick.

After it's mixed, pour the granola into two cookie sheets and pop them into the oven.

Stir the granola every 15 minutes for approx. 1 hour and 25 minutes. Cool on the pans completely and enjoy!

Serving Size: Makes roughly 19 servings of 30 grams each (by weight)

Number of Servings: 19

Recipe submitted by SparkPeople user AZHOLIDAY.