Pinned Home Solutions: Home made chewy granola bars!

So this was a fun Pinterest project. I had repinned a recipe some time ago and it popped into my head today at the grocery store. I used the basic quantities in her recipe but mixed it up for something that would suit my tastes better. You always start out with 3 cups of your base dry ingredient. In this case, I used quick oats. You can use differing ratios of oats with your favorite cereal. If you really like corn pops, use all corn pops. If you want variety in texture, half oats and half cereal. Whatever combination appeals to you will work. I am thinking maybe Life cereal would be good too. To your 3 cups of whatever, you add, well, whatever you like. I went nuts, literally. I used a handful each of sliced almonds, chopped pecans and dry roasted sunflower seeds. Then I added a generous handful of chopped Craisins and about the same amount of chopped dates because I love that combination. Any soft dried fruit will be fine. You can add coconut flakes, chocolate chips (I did ;), gummy bears!, just let your imagination run wild. The combinations are endless! So once you dump all your dry stuff in a big bowl, mix it together and set aside until you have your binder cooked.
The binder is a syrup that holds all these delicious bits together. If you really went hog wild, increase the amounts of binder ingredients so your chewy granola bars will be bars and not chunks. Unless of course you like chunks. Who am I to say? So you put 1/4 cup butter (NOT margarine) in a medium sauce pan. Add 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, any pure natural syrup. I did one batch with the basic honey, butter and brown sugar. I did a second batch using agave nectar. You will bring the mix to a low boil and it will start to foam. If you've made fudge, you are familiar with this. Let it boil and be foaming for two minutes then remove from heat, add a teaspoon of vanilla and stir well. In the batch that I made with agave nectar, I added a 1/3 cup of natural peanut butter after I removed it from the heat, then added the vanilla. You can be really creative with what you use in the syrup as well. That's what makes this fun. You don't need to let it cool but you do need to stabilize your bowl with a towel as you will be stirring everything together as you drizzle the syrup over you dry ingredients. Go slow. Do NOT dump the whole pot into the bowl and expect it to disperse evenly because the cereal and oats will start to absorb it immediately and it won't go well from there on out. So you slowly drizzle your hot syrup over your dry stuff, stirring to make sure everything gets a good coating. Just a heads up: don't add your chocolate chips now nor anything else that can melt from the intense heat. Sprinkle them over the mix after you've panned it and press them in . That leads me to the next step. You can choose your pan based on how thick you want your bars. It's all preference. I like mine just about the thickness of the store bought ones so I used my 9"x11" pan. Dump your mixture into the pan, no greasing needed, and firmly press everything evenly into the bottom of the pan. Let it set for 20-30 minutes then turn out, cut and store in an air tight container. You can wrap each one individually if your packing them to go or giving them as a gift. These came out so incredibly delicious.
I had a really hectic week being my first back to work. My schedule was horribly all over the place. I would have love, love, loved something that I could grab quick and eat during my drive into the city. Alas, I went hungry if I didn't have enough time to make something. I'm not much for mornings so I sit around with my coffee too long, take too long on my hair, makeup and dressing, then end up running behind. I much prefer to wake up on my own and be lazy in the morning for a couple hours. I don't mind late nights at all. With hubby's schedule, we are up 'til 1 or 2 in the morning most nights. That seems to suit me well.
So have fun whipping up different combinations of these treats. You can even add things like chia, flax or wheat germ powder to kick up the nutrition. You can keep your syrup really simple and be careful with what you add for dry ingredients to make a lower fat, low sugar alternative. They were fun and quick to make and I am enjoying one right now :)