Granola bars, sort of

I was on a granola bar kick for a while, because I needed healthy, portable snacks. I wanted to mix things up by adding some (dairy free) chocolate chips, so I looked up recipes and came across a few. Don't laugh, but I used a combination of Rachel Ray's "No Bake Chewy Granola Bar" recipe and some other food blogger recipes. Rachel's recipe calls for rice crispy cereal. I used a gluten free, brown rice cereal instead. I used 1/4 cup brown sugar instead of 1/2 (I used extra honey). I also added peanuts to make up for the other ingredients I was missing. I didn't have raisins or granola, so my bars fell apart a little, but were still the perfect combination of salty and sweet.




Ingredients:
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter (I used Earth Balance)
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 cups granola,
1 cup rice cereal
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup thin pretzel sticks
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanuts




Process:
1. In a medium saucepan, combine the brown sugar with the honey and butter. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then lower the heat to medium-low and simmer until the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat.
2. Add the granola, rice cereal, raisins and pretzels to the saucepan and fold the ingredients to evenly coat with the sauce. Transfer the granola mixture to a 9-by-13-inch ungreased baking pan and press firmly to evenly fill. Gently press the chocolate chips onto the top of the granola. Let the granola mixture set in the refrigerator until firm, about 15 minutes, then cut into 2 1/4-by 3-inch bars.

Granola bars

I've made both chewy and crunchy granola before, and love having it for breakfast. I wanted to make transportable bars rather than regular granola so that I can take them to work. I found this recipe at The Cutting Edge of Ordinary, but changed the recipe slightly.

Ingredients:

2 cups old fashioned oatmeal
1 cup sliced almonds
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup honey
1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup chopped, dried ginger
1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins 
1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Process:

--Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9x13 pan. Toss nuts, seeds and oatmeal together and bake on pan for 10 mins, stirring often, until brown.

--Transfer mixture to large bowl

--In a saucepan, add butter, honey,brown sugar, vanilla and salt and bring to a boil for 1 min. The mixture will bubble up. Mix often and remove from heat.

--Add liquid mixture to large bowl.

--Add dried fruit and mix well, combing everything.

--Transfer to greased pan and push it down so that everything sticks together. Let cook for an hour and press down again, otherwise the granola will fall apart.

--Let cool completely, then cut into bars, wrap in waxed paper or plastic wrap, and enjoy!

A variation is to bake the granola for 20-30 min in a 300 degree oven. I skipped this step, fearing I would over-cook it, and the bars were great.

--J