Easy, Healthy, Impossible-to-Screw-Up, Homemade Chewy Granola Bars

I keep granola bars around at all times. I keep them in the house. I keep them in the car. I keep one in my purse. I do this so that I always have something relatively healthy to eat if I find myself out and about with little time and lots of hunger. So I was happy when my friend Darci showed up at our recipe club with a recipe for chewy granola bars. I’ve never made my own granola bars, and, honestly, I didn’t see any reason why I’d want to take the time to make my own. But I have had a couple bags of rolled oats in our pantry for a while and I haven’t eaten them. Since this is the main ingredient in the recipe, I thought: what the heck?! I’m all for saving money by eating what we have in the house and I really don’t like to throw food out (so wasteful).

Well, am I glad I made these! Darci was right; they really are easy and it’s virtually impossible to screw them up. Unlike many things that you bake, you can mess with the ingredients willy-nilly and it still comes out great! And this is the way I like to cook: a little of this, a little of that! I think these would also be a great breakfast on the go. They way I made them, they taste like cinnamon raisin oatmeal, but in a bar. How awesome is that?! And I can control the amount of sugar and sodium so I know exactly what I am eating. Also awesome!

Here’s the recipe for Darci’s Chewy Granola Bars:

Ingredients:

• 4 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup butter softened (I substituted 1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce)
• 1/2 cup honey (I just drizzled a bunch in without measuring it)
• 1/3 brown sugar (I used 1/4 cup white sugar because my brown sugar was rock solid and I didn’t have time to deal with it)
• 2 cups chocolate chips (I used a small package of raisins instead)
• chopped nuts (I used a bunch of pecans; sorry, again, no measuring)
• optional: 2 eggs (I didn’t use eggs)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease 9×13 pan (I used cooking oil spray).

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.

Lightly press mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake at 325 degrees for 18-22 minutes or until golden brown.

Let cool (at least 10 minutes) before cutting into bars.

And VOILA! Yummy homemade granola bars. I think next time I’ll make them with peanut butter instead of apple sauce and chocolate chips instead of raisins. Then after that, I’ll use craisins and almond slivers. And after that….

What do you think would be good?