I hope you are having a fabulous start to your 2014! Can you believe were already half way through January?! Where is the time going? It really needs to slow itself down. Who's with me?
Today I am going to share with you this amazing, easy breakfast staple, granola bars! I am the guilty one here, almost every time we go to the grocery store, I can't leave the breakfast isle without stopping at the granola bars. Have you ever looked at the ingredients on the labels? They include a very long list that most of us cannot pronounce correctly. Yuck!
I really did not realize how many things we were eating that have really weird and disgusting ingredients, GMO's, and MSG. Now, every time we go to the store I make sure to check the labels, and if I can't pronounce the ingredients on the label, I either buy the organic version, or look for another brand of the same product. Lately, I've been on a cooking from scratch kick, and it has been pretty successful! Yesterday I made an amazing crock pot dish from Paula Deen, and can I just say it? FAB-U-LOSITY! Amazing! It was SO tasty, the house smelled absolutely wonderful. Anyways, that is another post all in itself!
Here we go with the granola bars! The thing I love about this recipe is that you most likely have all of these ingredients in your house already. I looked all around Pinterest, and Google search for a basic recipe. I couldn't find one that I absolutely liked, so I made my own!
You'll need:
2 cups of old fashioned oats (if you don't have these, you can use quick oats)
1/2-3/4 cup of whatever nuts you like, depending on how crunchy you want it to be. I used walnuts!
1/3 cup honey (local, pure raw honey is best!)
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
Optional: A loose TBSP of brown sugar
Now, this is the basis of this recipe. You also can do different wet ingredients too! Be creative here!
Add all your dry ingredients into a bowl, mix well! Then melt your peanut butter in the microwave, it should only need about 30 seconds, and add honey. Mix well then pour over your dry ingredients. Mix well again, making sure all your dry ingredients get well incorporated. Take a sheet of parchment paper, and spread out your granola mix, making sure you pack it firmly together! This is a very important step, otherwise they will fall apart on you. I put mine in a square shape so they are all the same size when you go to cut them up! Chill them in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour!
The first batch I made included 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips I ran through my food processor to make the pieces just a tid bit smaller, and I also used crunchy peanut butter instead of creamy to give it more texture and flavor! On top, I added softened Nutella. Is your mouth watering yet? Needless to say, they may not have been as healthy as I would have liked, buttttttt... they were AWESOME. And I love chocolate.And I don't feel bad about it.
I just made a new batch of these last night, this time I added 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips, and about 1/4 cup pomegranate Craisins!
I hope you all have a great week & enjoy using your creativity with this recipe!
-A
No comments:
Post a Comment