Penny Pickles

My kids take their lunch to school almost everyday. There are few school lunches that I and they are willing eat – so I spend a good chunk of my grocery bill on granola bars. Good, quality granola bars are expensive plain and simple. A box can cost upwards to $5 or $6 depending on the brand. When you are buying three to four boxes a week, it adds up.

Something had to give, there are only a few areas of my budget that aren’t set in stone, and groceries was one of them. I’m not willing to compromise my standards of food quality, I know too much. So I found a recipe on pinterest and thought I’d give it a try. Talk about easy and cheap! Wow! I made a few changes to the recipe and I will make a few more next time around. Here’s the basic recipe and then I’ll talk more about what I’ll be changing.

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 cups plain granola (this is the recipe I used)
• 1 cup rice cereal (Rice Krispies, etc.)
• 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup peanut butter chips

Process

1. Line an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 square pan with parchment. Set aside.
2. Combine honey and butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in brown sugar after butter starts to melt.
3. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat to medium-low and simmer until the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat.
4. Add the granola and rice cereal, half of the chocolate chips and pb chips into the saucepan and fold them into the sauce until evenly coated.
5. Spread the mixture into the prepared pans and press firmly with a spatula to evenly fill. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate and peanut butter chips onto the top of the granola and gently press them down with the spatula.
6. Let sit at room temperature for 15-20 minutes or until mostly cooled and set, put in the fridge for 30 mins; lift out of the pan and cut into bars.
7. Store in container at room temperature, separate layers with parchment paper.
8. Eat and enjoy!

Next time around I’m not going to use cinnamon in my granola – or make an additional plain batch – I love it in the granola, but it not so much with the pb and chocolate. That’s it! These are seriously so damn good I can’t stand it. By adding part of the chocolate chips and pb chips with the hot mixture it makes the bars have that melted chocolate in them -OMG they are so good. We’re going to play around with the recipe, I’m going to add chopped pretzels and different types of nuts. I am also going to make them thinner, mine were about 3/4 inch thick – so good, but so filling. I can barely eat one, so I’ll be able to stretch the recipe to make more by doing this.

All told it took about 10 mins from start to finish, not including fridge time.

I haven’t quantified exactly how much it costs to make these. I got about 16 bars – which is about three boxes. I can promise you I didn’t spend $15 on the ingredients. I also didn’t have to worry about recycling a box or throwing out wrappers – so environmentally speaking these are pretty great. Plus I’ve made them with all natural and organic ingredients so they I am certain they are good for me and my little ones bodies. We’re just about out – so it’s time for some more…. Yum!

Thanks!