Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Granola Bars

So if you know me well, there are two things you probably know about me, if you don't I'll inform you...1) I love a good deal and telling people about them. So here is my bragging for today, boxes of Quaker Instant Oatmeal for $0.40 and jars of Skippy peanut butter for under a dollar. 2) I enjoy making things from scratch. I haven't bought bread from the store in who knows how long. I got into canning this past summer, and enjoy having the end product. I like making homemade treats for my kids, it often brings the neighbor kids running. Two of my favorites are fruit leather and granola bars. That being said, I'll share with you my granola bar recipe I got years ago as a youth, when someone made them for girls camp.



Granola Bars

8 c. oats
2 c. chopped nuts
2 c. chocolate chips
4 c. rice crispies
3 c. other (butterscotch chips, sunflower seeds, wheat germ, coconut, raisins, craisin, etc. you decide)
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. peanut butter
1 1/3 c. corn syrup
1 c. & 4 Tbs. butter
1/3 c. honey
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 350
Mix together dry ingredients in a large bowl (oats through salt). Melt butter and peanut butter. Stir in the rest of the wet ingredients, make sure the butter and peanut butter isn't too warm so it doesn't scramble your eggs. Pour wet ingredients over everything in your big bowl and mix well. Press granola mix into 2 greased cookie sheets. Bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and cut. I wrap the granola bars in tin foil and store them in my freezer in a ziplock bag.
I hope you enjoy these as much as our family does.

5 comments:

Ryan & Amanda said...

These were so yummy last weekend at Colin's graduation! I've been meaning to ask your for the recipe so I am so glad you posted it, thanks for sharing!

Heather said...

I'm excited to try these, Erin...thanks for posting! :) What's your favorite combination of "3 c. other" to use? I don't like to get too creative with a recipe until the 2nd or 3rd attempt! :)

Heather said...

How many does this usually make, and how big are they? I just plugged in the nutritional info (using 1.5 c. Craisins, .5c. coconut, and 1 c. wheat germ for the "3 c. other") and got the following:

If this yields 36 bars, each has:
322 cals
17.2 g. fat
4.2 g. fiber
7 WW Points

If this yields 48 bars, each has:
241 cals
12.9 g. fat
3.2 g. fiber
5 WW Points

Erin said...

heather i usually cut each cookie sheet into 36, so that is a total of 72 granola bars, so i guess based on your stat it would be about 3.5 points. What I usually add is raisins, butterscotch chips, wheat germ and coconut, and I do about a cup of each, so it's 4 c. of additional things. This last batch looked very christmasy, but luckily didn't transfer over too much in the picture. my coconut was died green, left over from an easter thing, and i didn't have chocolate chips so i used left over christmas m&m. i'd love to see the breakdown of points and calories for what i did. you seem to be a pro at getting that info together. i hope you guys like them!

Heather said...

Hi Erin!

Here you go! :)

For your original recipe (with chocolate chips, not M&M's), with a yield of 72 bars, each bar has:

174.8 cals
9.4 g. fat
2.1 g. fiber
4 WW points

With M&M's, it changes to:
180.8 cals
9.2 g. fat
2 g. fiber
4 WW points

The version that I posted above, changed to yield 72 bars would be:

161 cals
8.6 g. fat
2.1 g. fiber
4 WW points

Hope that's helpful! I plan on making these soon...my kids will love them! And as long as they're somewhat filling, I wouldn't mind spending 4 points on one for a meal to go.