Homemade Granola and Granola Bars

These are so simple to make and totally yummy! Enjoy.

Chocolate Cranberry Granola Bars drizzled with chocolate almond bark.

 Getting Started:

First we will be making our homemade granola, I got the recipe from this great site:

http://www.tinyurbankitchen.com/2010/04/homemade-granola.html



Ingredients:

• 2 cups oats
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tbsp brown sugar                  

Preheat oven to 350' F. Combine ingredients. Spread on cookie sheet, bake about 20 min till golden brown. It will get crunchier as it cools.

 Mixed ingredients:

 After they were baked:

*Note: I doubled the recipe for the granola so I could make three different batches of granola bars. I wound up having about 2 cups of leftover granola. Perfect for mixing in yogurt or with cereal. I am storing it in an airtight container in the refrigerator (but it's probably ok to keep in the pantry too)

Now for the granola bars.

The recipe came from this great website (although I also saw variations of it on other blogs and I did make some alterations and substitutions to mine) It's a pretty easy recipe to play around with and create your own variations. 

http://www.rachaelraymag.com/Recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-search/no-recipe-zone-recipes/no-bake-chewy-granola-bars



Ingredients:

• 4tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey (I warmed it in the microwave for 5-10 seconds to make it pour easily)
• 2 cups granola (our homemade kind of course)
• 1 cup rice cereal ( I substituted for Cocoa Krispies)  - my chocolate obsession showing through :)

In a large sauce pan, combine brown sugar and honey with butter. Bring to a boil over medium high heat then lower heat and simmer till sugar dissolves. (about 2 min) Remove from heat.

Add granola, rice cereal and fold into the sauce.

Then spread mixture in foil or wax paper lined 9x13 baking pans. Press firmly and evenly, a 1/2" thickness works well.... you don't want to make them too thin or they will fall apart.

Let cool. You can put them in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes.

Cut into bars. Store in airtight containers stacked in layers on wax or parchment paper.

* Note: I also doubled this recipe and then divided it into 3 batches before mixing in my extras.

Mixing in Extras:

 This batch I mixed in 1/2 cup peanut butter (softened in the microwave for 10 seconds). I also added 1/4 cup of both finely chopped peanuts and chocolate chips.

See how I melted my spatula. Oops! It really curled up by the time I was done!

Note to self: don't mix boiling hot sauce with a rubber spatula, duh! 

Here is the batch I made with 1/2 cup each chopped up cranberries and chocolate chips, but I pressed these on top of the granola bars after spreading the mixture into the lined pan instead of mixing it all together first. This is also the batch I drizzled chocolate almond bark on after they were cooled and cut.

My third batch was pretty plain with just chocolate chips mixed in.

Then with some of my left over chocolate almond bark I coated some peanut butter filled pretzels..... this little treat went FAST at our house. :)

Some other extras you might like: pretzels, sliced almonds, toffee bits, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, raisins.....

What extras would you use?