Homemade Granola Bars

Most of you know that my oldest can’t eat foods with dyes or preservatives not to mention several other commonly occurring foods (like apple, citrus, and cinnamon. ) Yet she LOVES granola bars. She has two kinds she can eat both of which are VERY expensive.

We already have a favorite granola recipe and I finally found a granola bar recipe that the kids all like and which is adaptable (which is very important to someone like me who rarely measures and uses only what is on hand.)

I didn’t measure for this but it is easy to “eye”.

Ingredients:

Dry oatmeal or other dry grain (roughly 4 cups)

rice cereal-we use an organic one but you could use whatever crispy rice cereal you like or use nuts or more oatmeal instead (About 1 cup)

A tablespoon or so of oil–you can use margarine or butter instead

honey or maple syrup (about 1 cup–more to tast–the goal is to make the consistency right so if you like sweeter add more honey or maple syrup and less peanut butter)

Peanut (or almond or cashew or whatever nut butter you like, you can substitute date here) We used Almond butter–about 3 cups of raw.

Raisins (optional)

The goal is to make a glue-like substance to keep the dry stuck together. In our case the dry was about 6 cups and the wet/sticky was about 4 cups. I threw it all in the food processor until it all started to clump together–not a solid ball, just slightly. I would add slightly more wet next time as these were not as chewy as I would like. I think the consistancy you are looking for is about that of pie dough.

We then flattened it all into a pan, cut it into slices, then baked at 375 for about 15 minutes. The kids are VERY happy with it so I call it a hit. (They also loved it uncooked–which you can do by refrigerating the bars for a couple hours. We lost a whole rough due to nibblers.)

In the search I found several highly adaptable and more specific recipes to try–I was looking for recipes that did not include butter or corn syrup–I want HEALTHY. This website had the best list and if you are nervous about trying my halfway recipe I would suggest heading over there, these recipes are much more sure of themselves.