Granola Bars

Lately I've had a hankering after granola bars, so I did some research and found a tasty recipe here online. I'll post her recipe here below and then ruminate on the fact that I hardly followed it at all but they still turned out good below.

HOMEMADE GRANOLA BARS
From Joyful Abode

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Gather your ingredients:

2 cups oats
3/4 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup peanuts, crushed
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
4 Tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
approximately 8 oz. dried fruit
To crush your peanuts, put them in a plastic bag and smash them with a heavy mallet, measuring cup, or sauce pan.

Then, mix the peanuts, oats, wheat germ, and sunflower seeds in a baking dish with sides. Toast them in the oven for 10-12 minutes, stirring every few minutes so that they don’t get burned.

Meanwhile, prepare a glass baking dish (about 11 x 13 inches) for your granola by lining it with waxed paper lightly sprayed with a nonstick spray.

Put the brown sugar, honey, butter, vanilla, and salt into a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly.

By now, your grains and nuts should be toasted, so mix everything together in a large bowl. The grains, the liquid “glue,” and the dried fruit. Oh, and turn off your oven, because you’re finished with it now.

Mix everything REALLY WELL because you want to make sure the “glue” gets all over everything. Now, dump your granola mixture into your prepared baking dish.

Spread out the mixture with a wooden spoon or spatula.

Now fold over the sides of the waxed paper or add a sheet on top, and PRESS HARD all over the granola. You want to compact it together so that your bars won’t fall apart when you cut them.

Wait 2-3 hours or until the granola has totally cooled.

Then, open the waxed paper …

And carefully turn the granola onto a large cutting board, peeling away the rest of the paper. Firmly pressing down with a big knife (not sawing), cut your granola into whatever size bars you’d like.

I wrapped ours individually in plastic wrap, so that we could just throw one into our bag or lunch box in the morning. If you’d like to save on packaging though, you can store yours in an airtight container, between sheets of waxed paper (so they don’t stick together).

Enjoy!

As usual, this recipe proved more of a jumping off point than an actual set of followed directions... I'll explain my changes and how they went below.

1) 2/3 cup sugar seemed like a LOT of sugar for me, so I cut it back to maybe 1/3 cup.

2) Knowing the above substitution would make the bars more soft, I added 1/3-1/2 c. peanut butter as a binder. I also have been trying to boost my protein. I cut out the butter since I get the greasy all-nut kind that has lots of peanut oil on the top.

3) I don't really like peanuts, so I used almonds instead. (Renee, you could easily cut out the nuts totally without any problem and replace them with yummy seeds or fruit.)

4) I didn't have any wheat germ, but I did throw in whatever else was in the fridge: ground flax seed, millet, sesame seeds, craisins, raisins, sunflower seeds, and even some protein powder.

Mine turned out chewy, not hard, but pleasantly firm. Even after sitting in a hot car they hang together well enough to eat as a bar. I cut them into bar size, but next time I will cut them in thirds because these suckers are RICH and filling. My boys love love love them. Jed calls them "cookie" and Michael takes them with him on his bike rides to and from work. Let me know how yours turn out!