Granola Bars

For about a month now, I've been making our granola bars.  I got this recipe from my sister-in-law who found it a little while back.  They are so good!  We don't usually buy granola bars because they are high in calories and generally don't fill us up so we eat two or five before we realize if we eat anymore we won't have any left and we still aren't satisfied!  The great thing about these is you can control what you put in them (which is something I've had to start watching since going gluten-free) and they really are filling!  Tim and I eat one for breakfast most days.  Also, they are a nice little treat for dessert without being too horrible for you.  They are just sweet enough to take the edge off of a craving.  Here is the source of the recipe.  I only tweaked it a bit, so I want to make sure I give full credit to her. (I don't follow her blog or anything, she seems a bit extreme on some things, so I'm not condoning all of her writings, FYI).

Ingredients:

(disregard the vanilla in the picture, I don't use vanilla)

4 cups quick oats
2 cups rice cereal
1/2 cup honey
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:
Combine the oats and cereal in a very large bowl.

In a saucepan, melt the butter, honey, brown sugar, and peanut butter over medium heat. (A little tip: when measuring sticky things like honey and peanut butter, run your measuring cup under hot water for 30-60 seconds before scooping the ingredient.  When you go to pour it out, it will slide right out and you won't have to scrape it.)

Once it is all melted and the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and add the vanilla.

Pour hot mixture over the oats and cereal and stir.  It gets really thick, so it's actually more of pressing it all together with a spatula.

After thoroughly mixed, press the mixture down into a parchment paper lined jelly pan.

Start by pushing it against one end of the pan then push down to thin out the bars.

At this point, I put them in the refrigerator for a while, but you can just let them cool on the counter.  After they have cooled down, I like to add some chocolate chips to the top.

Push them down into the bars, then I refrigerate them longer.  After they are hardened, cut them into bars.  I usually get about 15 out of one batch.  You can make them whatever size you want.  I store them in a bag in the fridge to easily grab them when we want them.