If, however I published even so much as an eyeball from our spontaneous "session" she would more likely than not, unfriend me...and I don't just mean on Facebook either!!
Excuse me...I simply must go feed Shelby.
She saw me carry in and open a new bag of food and has been incessantly whining for 17 solid minutes now. I probably shouldn't give in but it is only 11 minutes until her "official" supper time and frankly...I CAN'T CONCENTRATE!!!!
Isn't she cute though? Those ears are just something else!!
This is my official photo of the day. I entered her in a contest and needed a photo to submit. The photo was supposed to exhibit the dog following a command.
HA!
So, this is her (not really) doing the command "Wait!". She is to stay at the top of the stairs until I get to the landing and then on the landing until I get all the way down. More often than not she is a few paces behind me hoping I won't notice her progess.
If I firmly state the command at the outset, she is usually good to follow.
Okay, now on to our topic of this post.
Granola bars
I mainly want to say...
...this is sooooo doable!
I have spent a lot of money on granola bars and will probably still, but it is nice to know that this is a viable option.
I am going to talk you through what I did and why, but know this at the outset, I don't have a recipe to give you as I was winging it to begin with.
I am still going to experiment with different combinations of ingredients and might just get back to ya on that! Or I might not.
I am not making any rash promises.
I began with a cup of finely chopped nuts.
Don't tell my kids, but hiding under those innocent peanuts are also sunflower seeds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, and a few almonds.
My next ingredient was dried fruit. This is a blend of cherries, blueberries, and cranberries.
Oh, my...this is what really makes them yummy to me.
I diced the fruit up as small as I could, especially since I also doubled the amount (about a 1/2 cup this time) from my first trial of this recipe. I knew it would be a point of contention.
It was kindof a hassle cause this fruit is sticky, but chop I did.
Just to let you know...
...every single one of my kids proclaimed that this batch had WAY too much fruit in it.
My husband heartily disagreed!
This recipe came to an abrupt halt when I turned around to see the sun shining through the jar of Lyle's Golden Syrup!!
I sang out to me...."AAaaaaahhhhhhhhh"
I simply had to snap a few shots of it and decided on this one of Lyle, and a few of his friends.
Then I got back to my chopping.
I will admit to you that I laid each of these chocolate chips on its "flat side" to aid in my chopping progress, and I wasn't disappointed in the result. These are the rather large, rather strong, dark chocolate chips that I favor. Please, especially if you are a regular chocolate chipper, just skip this chopping step!
I then stirred all of the fruit, nuts and chocolate together in a bowl. I wanted to make sure the fruit got unstuck from itself and that everything was evenly distributed.
Next I measured out just under 1 cup of peanut butter.
I guess, really I should say I shclur-plopped a hearty amount of peanut butter in my large glass measuring cup and hoped it was enough. This went into the microwave for a little bit to get it nice and melty.
I then added enough syrup to equal 1 1/2 cups in the measurer.
Hmmmm, funny measurer is not a real word!!
My dear middle child, who happened to be close by was the pourer guy.
Hmmmm, look at that pourer isn't a real word either.
It stressed him out mightily because he didn't want to add too much!
This lovely golden liquid is simply cane sugar syrup.
Other ooey gooey liquids you might choose are honey, or brown rice syrup.
I don't much care for the big taste of honey unless it is pared equally with butter and slathered on a homemade biscuit straight from the oven, and I couldn't find brown rice syrup.
I did come across some a few days later at a specialty store and may still try it.
I think a little dash of vanilla is always nice in something, so that got stirred in too.
This mixture got dumped into the nut/fruit mixture and stirred until it was all combined.
Oh, look at that, I forgot to tell you that I added about 3 cups of oats and 1 cup of a crispy rice cereal from the organic aisle.
See how I was hastily scrawling out the recipe as I added things in.
This is really, really good to do in case something doesn't work out or taste right.
Next up, my little munchkin took to rolling the mixture into my large bar pan.
It is important to really pack it tight.
I really should have given in and turned the kitchen light on at this point, but am so, so very stubborn. It was almost 5pm in the evening and the sun was setting...really I need to better know my limits.
We put this in the oven @325 for about 10 minutes.
Once they were cooled, I attempted to cut them into beautiful rectangles of granola goodness.
I ended up with strange and odd shapes of granola goodness, (and lots of crumbles) which got layer in a tin between layers of wax paper.
Here are my conclusions on the matter:
1.This is a quite a little amount of work, but only because I am trying to please 5 different mouths. If it were just me I would dump all those fruits and nuts in whole and enjoy a hearty lumpy bar.
2.Though my kids thought it was too much fruit, my husband didn't even realize fruit was in it. I won't be altering the fruit amount by much, but will probably bump up the chocolate to mask it even better.
3.These are a little too peanut buttery for me personally. I am going to try less PB and more syrup.
4. The total cost of a batch of these was right around $3.00. The syrup and berries were high dollar. However a comparable box of bars (meaning without preservatives and corn syrup and other assorted ick) would be closer to $10.00. That is a huge chunk of change.
5. I have lots more research to do on this matter and look forward to hearing from my foodie friend who probably has the perfect recipe right at the tip of her tongue to share! You know me...I seem to not really be able to learn something until I have gotten in there and had a little failure first.
6. While these aren't a failure, and are yummy...they aren't perfect!
7. I should have just made chocolate pie. I make really good chocolate pie!!
8. I didn't really mean that, the point was to have a handy breakfast food and every one knows chocolate pie is not a handy breakfast food.
9. Don't try to eat chocolate pie with your hands, by all means use a plate and a fork!!
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