Home Made Granola Bars Made Simple

There's a few things about me that you may not know:

1. I like trying new things (except when I don't).

2. Although I'm not at ALL a picky eater (I'll try about anything at least once), I'm a bit picky about what I feed my kids.

I haven't completely started feeding my family whole-grain, all fresh everything - but I probably should. It's so much better for your overall health! And, after all, if our bodies are God's dwelling place, shouldn't we fill them with the best stuff we can?

Ok, enough. You didn't come here so I could lecture you on healthy foods.

Anyway, with all that in mind, I try to get the healthiest stuff I can find when I go to the grocery store.

Enter granola bars.

My kids like granola bars.

That's healthy. Right?

Well, it should be. But that high-fructose corn syrup holding it together...blech. And although it IS made of oats, supposedly, there is less than 1 gram of fiber per bar...(at least in the ones I have).

Surely we can do better than that?

So, I've been on a bit of a quest: find a good granola bar recipe.

What qualifies as good?

Well, I'd like it to have healthy ingredients, natural sugars preferably, and not too much of them; and, the clincher: it needs to be something my hubby will eat.

I tried one a few months ago, but it didn't turn out too great. I didn't mind them, but the kids and the hubster wouldn't touch them.

Bye-bye, recipe!

So, I've looked around, bt haven't pursued it too much, until the other day when I was on Pinterest, I saw this recipe: 5 ingredient peanut butter granola bars. I pinned it.

Today, I remembered that recipe, and pulled it up. Looked pretty good. So I decided to try it.

Good news! I think it might be a winner!

Now if you know me very well at all, you probably have figured out by now that I never follow a recipe precisely. Never.

So here's my version of THAT recipe:

4 C. Rolled oats (I used old-fashioned oats - the kind you buy in the big cardboard can)

1 C. coarsely crushed rice chex cereal (you could use rice krispies, but my friendly neighborhood mice had eaten those, so I had to use what I had)

1 C. Peanut butter

1/2 - 3/4 C. honey

1/2 C. chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

1/2 C. miniature marshmallows

Mix together oats, cereal, choc. chips and marshmallows. In a microwave safe dish, melt the peanut butter and honey and stir together until creamy looking. Pour over other ingredients and mix thoroughly. The chocolate and marshmallows will melt slightly.

Press firmly into a pan (9x13 or so - I lined mine with parchment to make it easier to clean up)

Bake on 325° for about 10 minutes.

Cool and cut into bars.

Disclaimer: I am fully aware that putting chocolate and marshmallows in it just negated some of the healthiness. However, as least in this case, while it may not be super-duper health food, I DO know what went into it - and I don't know what all goes into the store-bought ones. At least I can pronounce all of the ingredients! And though they are sweet, it's all natural sugar - except what comes from the chocolate and marshmallows.

The verdict? Dear hubby pronounced them, 'not too bad', the kiddos loved them, and I, even I who don't like peanut butter overly much, thought they were pretty tasty! The taste is faintly reminiscent of those no-bake cookies.

So, if you make them, let me know what you think!

Food for Fall

The last couple of days, I've had a hankering for some good ol' cornbread.

So, today I was thinking, 'what to fix for supper?', and thought, 'I should make some cornbread'.

And what goes better with cornbread than a nice pot of soup?

Now, I'm not a big fan of fall. Ok, I'm not a fan of fall at all.

But soup is a nice fall food, and we like soup...so soup it was. (Too bad it wasn't a nice fall day! It's not quite as nice when it's 80 degrees outside, but I digress.)

I've never made soup with sausage before (except for gumbo, but that's a little different), but I had a package of polish sausage in the freezer that I had bought a couple of weeks ago when it was on sale for $1.89. So I got to thinking.

And this is what I came up with:

We're not really overly fond of polish sausage, but I thought this turned out really good. Not sure about the hubby, but he ate two bowls, so it must not have been too bad - you'll have to ask him what he thought! By simmering for a while, the potatoes cooked down some and made a nice thick soup.

Ingredients:

12-14 oz polish-style sausage, sliced

1 small onion, chopped

2 T. butter or oil

4-5 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

2-3 T. beef soup base (or powdered boullion)

1 can tomato soup

8 oz. frozen green beans

6 oz. frozen mixed veggies

salt, pepper, garlic, dried parsley,basil and oregano to taste

Heat butter or oil in 4 qt. pot, add onions, saute until translucent and starting to brown on the edges. Add sliced sausage and brown, stirring frequently. Add 2-3 quarts of water and stir to deglaze pan. Add remaining ingredients, and simmer for an hour or so.

(I used approx. 1 t. garlic powder, 1/2 t. dried basil, and 1/4 t. or so oregano. I'm not big on oregano, so you could add more, or less, if you like.)

Could also be put in the crockpot after browning onions and sausage, just be sure to add water to deglaze the pan before you put it in the crockpot, or you'll lose a lot of flavor.

(note: I wouldn't normally use tomato soup, but happened to have a can and wanted to use it up. You can do the same, or a can of tomato sauce would probably be just fine. The soup will give a slightly sweeter flavor to the broth. The goal is not to be a tomato-y soup, just to give the base a little pizazz.)

Serve this with some nice, hot buttered cornbread (NOT the sweet kind. YUCK.), and you have a yummy fall-ish dinner!

Enjoy!

Let Them Eat Cake!

For those that asked for the recipe for my cake, here it is!

Lemon Bundt Cake

1 box yellow cake mix
1 can of sprite, or 7up (I use anywhere from 1 c. to the whole can - depends on my mood, but just mix it in til it looks like a nice consistency for cake batter :-)
1 1/2 t. grated lemon peel

Mix together, pour into a greased and floured bundt pan and bake according to directions on box-I baked mine about 40 minutes on 350.

Glaze:
2 c. powdered sugar
juice from 1 med lemon
1 1/2 t. grated lemon peel
1 1/2 T. sour cream (you could use margarine, or just omit all together)

Stir together with just enough of the lemon juice to make it pourable. Drizzle over the cake while it is still warm.


For variations, you can use any kind of cake mix with the soda of your choice-try white cake with strawberry or orange soda, or I've seen chocolate with coke. Experiment! If you know me at all, you probably know that everything I cook is an experiment.... So far, I have yet to make anything that no one would eat! :-)