Crafts, Cooking, Farmers Market Addictions: Tabitha Homemade Granola Bars

This year my daughter, Tabitha, decided to make her own granola bars after noticing how much trash the individually wrapped boxed granola bars accumulated. She looked up recipes online and experimented with several batches until she found ones she liked. She thought that this was a small way she could reduce waste plus eat healthier by reducing how much proceeded food she ate. Homemade granola bars taste so much better than the boxed kind and by playing with the recipe adding different dried fruits, nuts and other types of nut butter the options are endless. They are sweetened with honey but other options are maple syrup or any flavor of jam/jelly or a combination. It's a great way to use up the last bit of jam in a jar. She shared them with me and I loved them so much I decided to make my own as well. I love homemade food and we try to eat as little proceeded food as possible. I made 2 different batches using dried cherries, dried cranberries, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, dried coconut and a new sunflower butter that I bought at the farmers market. They keep in the refrigerator for several weeks so no more boxed granola bars for us. We both have silicone bakeware which worked great, after cooling completely, at least 30 minutes, the bars pop right out. Another option would be any kind of baking pan lined with parchment paper to be able to lift out and cut into bars.

liquid mixture combined with oat mixture

Here's the recipe:

2/3 c. honey or maple syrup or jam/jelly (or combination)

4 T butter

4 T peanut or nut butter

3 T brown sugar

1 t vanilla

1/8 t salt

3 c oats

3/4 c chopped nuts, or sunflower seeds

2 c or 1 pkg. of dried cranberries, cherries or any kind of dried fruit combination

In a large bowl, combine oats, dried fruit and nuts, set aside. In a small saucepan over low/medium heat melt butter, peanut butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla and salt until all combined and brown sugar is dissolved. Pour liquid over oat mixture and stir to combine. Spoon into silicone baking bar pan or parchment line baking pan and bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Let cool completely in pan for at least 30 minutes so bars can set, if take out too soon, bars will crumble. Store in refrigerator in Ziploc bag or airtight container. Will keep 2 to 3 weeks in refrigerator. Recipe makes about 24 bars.

Enjoy,

Bamah