The Perfect Snack

Who doesn't reach for a granola bar when they're hungry before a sports practice? I know I do, and that's why I had wanted to try making my own granola bars for weeks. I finally got around to it a couple of weeks ago. I was rather surprised with how well they turned out and I had a blast making them. My favorite thing about making my own granola bars was that I could choose the ingredients.

The original recipe I used was found on For the Love of Cooking. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups old fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup sliced almonds
• 1/3 cup of honey
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbsp salted butter, plus more for pan
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup cut pecans
• 1/4 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Ingredients

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter a 9x9 glass baking dish. Set aside.
2. Spread oats, almonds, and pecans in a baking sheet pan. Toast in oven for 10 minutes, stir occasionally.
3. While that is in the oven, combine honey, brown sugar, butter, and vanilla in a saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until brown sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.
4. When the oat mixture is done, remove from oven and reduce heat to 300 degrees.
5. Immediately add oat mixture to honey mixture. Then stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Spread into the prepared glass baking dish evenly, and place in the oven for 25 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
8. Cut into squares or bars and wrap individually with saran wrap. Store for up to a week.

Finished product :)

These were extremely delicious and they were the perfect snack whenever I got hungry. The beauty of this recipe is that you can substitute almost any of the ingredients with ones you like better.

Let me know if you try this out with different ingredients!