Happy 4th of July. All of the expatriates here in town had a fun 4th of July celebration on the other side of the world!! My eating was very un-clean. But I didn't eat giant portions, so that was good. It's still funny, though. My body has gotten used to clean food and was not happy about all the sugar and grease today. Interesting how our bodies learn to actually PREFER eating the right way. Even though my tummy is a little achy now, I'm so pleased to realize that I've eaten healthy for long enough that my body doesn't really want to eat the other way. That's a happy thought for me today.
Kate, I tried to PM you the recipe, but I guess you can't do that if the user profile is disabled? Maybe I just don't know the system. I've only sent a couple PMs. Anyway, I'm going to post it here, so my apologies to all who aren't interested. You can just scroll down at this point.
GRANOLA BARS FROM SCRATCH
This recipe is from the More With Less cookbook. I don’t know what all the copyright rules are with cookbooks and posting on the internet, but let me use this chance to do a little add for the cookbook, since I'm sharing one of their recipes. The MWL cookbook, as the name suggests, tries to help us do more with less. The authors believe that we waste a lot of food in the US (we do!), that we eat too much meat (we do!), and that in general we eat very unhealthily (we do!). There are lots of from-scratch recipes in this book for great meals, but also for staples like breads, crackers, and, of course, granola. There are tips for great meatless meals and how to use leftovers. I use the cookbook because I live in Africa and HAVE to make most of this stuff from scratch. Most folks in America would think this book is crazy, since you can run down to the grocery and buy most of these convenience items. But folks like Cathe-ites who want healthy foods with no preservatives might love this cookbook.
These granola bars are kind of crumbly, but they are yummy. You could probably get them to stick better with more liquids, but I’ve just stuck with the recipe. Our honey is pretty potent, so I haven’t wanted to make that taste stronger. If you experiment and come up with something yummy, let me know. I also love to crumble them up and eat them as cereal.
Granola Bars
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place in ungreased 9x13 inch pan:
6 C rolled oats
Bake 10 minutes. Remove from oven and stir in:
½ C sunflower seeds or nuts
½ C coconut
½ C wheat germ
½ C powdered milk
Mix the following together and then add to dry mixture:
2/3 C honey
2/3 C oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1/3 milk
Optional: Add raisins or other dried fruit of your choice.
Stir until thoroughly coated. Press mixture firmly into 2 well-greased 10x15 inch cookie sheets (preferably the kind with a lip around the edge). Bake at 350 until nicely browned. Cut immediately into bars. Remove from pans when cool.
Option for making granola cereal instead of granola bars: Do not add egg and milk. Stir the honey, oil, and vanilla directly into the oat mixture in the 9x13 inch pan. Use that pan to bake the granola mixture for 10-15 minutes, removing every 3-5 minutes to stir it. Let the granola cool and then break it into chunks.
