Granola Bars

I'm always looking for great tasting, healthy snacks. I like making homemade granola bars, because there's so many things you can do with them. You can change what kind of dried fruit you want to use, add some different spices, and use what ever nut you want to. This recipe is for a dried cherry chocolate chip granola bar.

Ingredients:

2 Cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats

3/4 Cup Slivered Almonds

1/2 Cup Wheat Flour

1/2 Cup Honey

1 Ounce Butter

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar (I like to use the Splenda brown sugar)

2 t Vanilla

1 t Sea Salt

2 Cups Dried Cherries

1/2 Cup Mini Chocolate Chips

Directions:

Put rolled oats on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven at 350 for about 8-10 minutes. Stir halfway through, and make sure they do not burn.

In a small saucepan, combine butter, honey, brown sugar and vanilla. Cook over medium heat until sugar has completely dissolved.

Take oats out of oven and pour into a bowl. Add wheat flour, and mix. Pour butter mixture over oats and stir until coated. Add dried fruit and chocolate chips. Put mixture into a 9x9 inch sprayed pan and bake at 300 for 20-25 minutes. You want the bars to be slightly browned. When bars are done cooking remove and cool on a rack. Once cooled, cut into bars. These can be stored in a Ziploc bag or an air tight container. Enjoy!

Other Combinatons to try:

***Dried apples, pecans and cinnamon.

***Dates, dried cranberries and walnuts.

***Dried blueberries, almonds and coconut.

***Sunflower seeds, dried tropical fuit mix, walnuts