Tropical Traditions has quickly become one of my favorite online retailers for wholesome ingredients, like their famous Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil. Virgin coconut oil is one of the healthiest (and tastiest) oils you can cook with. In fact, many claim that this oil can boost the body’s immunity, speed up your metabolism, and provide you with more energy. I would encourage you to watch this brief video about Tropical Traditions, if you haven’t already. I have a whole new appreciation for their products and how their business is run.

One of the missions I am on this year and beyond is to move towards more wholesome foods; foods that aren’t processed to death and made with natural ingredients. The best way to know what you’re eating, obviously, is to cook from scratch! When Tropical Traditions sent me a jar of coconut oil to play around with, I immediately ran to their website to check out all of the great recipes that they had to choose from. Sure, you can use coconut oil in place of oil or butter in pretty much any recipe, but I wanted to try something different.

As I was scrolling through the recipes, I stumbled upon something that I had to try!

So here we go!

First, you need 1 1/2 cups of chopped nuts (I used a mixture of almonds and pecans). Also, preheat the oven to 250 F.

Then, mix the chopped nuts with 6 cups of rolled oats, and 1 1/2 cups of shredded coconut. Set aside.

In a saucepan combine 1 C. honey, 1/4 C. water and 1/2 t. Heat, stirring frequently, to thin the honey.

Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 C. coconut oil and 1 T. vanilla. Coconut is solid at room temperature, as you can see, but it will quickly turn into a liquid state when heated. Make sure you heat the mixture again until the oil has dissolved.

Pour over the oat mixture and stir well. Then, spread the granola onto 2 large, greased cookie sheets.

Cook the granola for 1 hour, but toss gently every 20 minutes. The smell was heavenly as this was baking! I could not wait for it to finish cooking. Once, the granola has cooked for the full hour, you can remove the pans from the oven and let the cereal cool; the granola also crisps up as it cools down. Then, store in an airtight container!

I have been topping my yogurt at breakfast with this granola every morning. I can’t tell you how tasty it is! This recipe has a permanent place in my recipe file because it tastes sooo much better than store-bought AND I know what’s in it!

Would you like to win your very own quart of Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil?

Please complete the mandatory entry and then complete as many bonus entries as you would like.

Mandatory:
You must follow me on Google Friend Connect first. Then, visit Tropical Traditions and tell me which recipe you would love to try!

Bonus Entries:

• Sign up for the Tropical Traditions Newsletter (3 entries)
• Follow Tropical Traditions on Twitter (1 entry)
• Follow Tropical Traditions (1 entry)
• Make a purchase from Tropical Traditions and use my “referred by a friend” code: 6714647. This will score you a free Virgin Coconut Oil book with purchase! (15 entries)
• Tweet the following message (1 entry – once per day):

#Win 32oz of @Troptraditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil! @thecravetosave http://tinyurl.com/4fodbl8 Ends 2/9 #organic #giveaway

• SEE THIS PAGE for complete list of bonus entries!

This giveaway will end on February 9, 2011 at 11:59pm. US /18+ only. Winner chosen by Random.org and notified via e-mail. Please see this page for official rules.

Disclosure: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

Tropical Traditions has quickly become one of my favorite online retailers for wholesome ingredients, like their famous Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil. Virgin coconut oil is one of the healthiest (and tastiest) oils you can cook with. In fact, many claim that this oil can boost the body’s immunity, speed up your metabolism, and provide you with more energy. I would encourage you to watch this brief video about Tropical Traditions, if you haven’t already. I have a whole new appreciation for their products and how their business is run.

One of the missions I am on this year and beyond is to move towards more wholesome foods; foods that aren’t processed to death and made with natural ingredients. The best way to know what you’re eating, obviously, is to cook from scratch! When Tropical Traditions sent me a jar of coconut oil to play around with, I immediately ran to their website to check out all of the great recipes that they had to choose from. Sure, you can use coconut oil in place of oil or butter in pretty much any recipe, but I wanted to try something different.

As I was scrolling through the recipes, I stumbled upon something that I had to try!

So here we go!

First, you need 1 1/2 cups of chopped nuts (I used a mixture of almonds and pecans). Also, preheat the oven to 250 F.

Then, mix the chopped nuts with 6 cups of rolled oats, and 1 1/2 cups of shredded coconut. Set aside.

In a saucepan combine 1 C. honey, 1/4 C. water and 1/2 t. Heat, stirring frequently, to thin the honey.

Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 C. coconut oil and 1 T. vanilla. Coconut is solid at room temperature, as you can see, but it will quickly turn into a liquid state when heated. Make sure you heat the mixture again until the oil has dissolved.

Pour over the oat mixture and stir well. Then, spread the granola onto 2 large, greased cookie sheets.

Cook the granola for 1 hour, but toss gently every 20 minutes. The smell was heavenly as this was baking! I could not wait for it to finish cooking. Once, the granola has cooked for the full hour, you can remove the pans from the oven and let the cereal cool; the granola also crisps up as it cools down. Then, store in an airtight container!

I have been topping my yogurt at breakfast with this granola every morning. I can’t tell you how tasty it is! This recipe has a permanent place in my recipe file because it tastes sooo much better than store-bought AND I know what’s in it!

Would you like to win your very own quart of Tropical Traditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil?

Please complete the mandatory entry and then complete as many bonus entries as you would like.

Mandatory:
You must follow me on Google Friend Connect first. Then, visit Tropical Traditions and tell me which recipe you would love to try!

Bonus Entries:

• Sign up for the Tropical Traditions Newsletter (3 entries)
• Follow Tropical Traditions on Twitter (1 entry)
• Follow (1 entry)
• Make a purchase from Tropical Traditions and use my “referred by a friend” code: 6714647. This will score you a free Virgin Coconut Oil book with purchase! (15 entries)
• Tweet the following message (1 entry – once per day):

#Win 32oz of @Troptraditions Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil! @thecravetosave http://tinyurl.com/4fodbl8 Ends 2/9 #organic #giveaway

• SEE THIS PAGE for complete list of bonus entries!

This giveaway will end on February 9, 2011 at 11:59pm. US /18+ only. Winner chosen by Random.org and notified via e-mail. Please see this page for official rules.

Disclosure: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.