No-Bake Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Granola Bars

No-Bake Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Granola Bars

I made these last night for our family night snack and I love them.  They have turned in to my favorite granola bar and I am planning on making them again.  My batch made 12 bars and I used Brown Rice Crispies instead of regular ones but I am sure either would work since they taste about the same.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup honey

2 T. peanut butter (I used smooth)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups quick cooking oats (not rolled)
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips (I used what I had which were chips that were actually a little bigger than normal, I just tried to chop them up a bit, but did a pretty lousy job of it so I have big chocolate chunks)

Instructions:

In a large bowl, stir oats and rice cereal together. Set aside. In a small pot, melt butter, honey, peanut butter and brown sugar together over medium high heat until it comes to a bubble. Reduce the heat and cook 2 minutes.  Take off the heat and pour in vanilla and stir. Pour over dry ingredients and mix well to moisten all ingredients. Pour into lightly greased small jelly roll pan or cookie sheet and press out to be about 3/4 inch in thickness.  If you want to fill the entire pan, I would double the recipe.  I used a glass cake dish that was 14X9 and I filled it about half way.  Make sure you firmly press it together so that it is compact and looks like a large granola bar.  

Sprinkle with mini chocolate chips and press down lightly. Cool on a counter top to room temperature for two hours or until the chocolate chips are set before cutting into bars. Wrap in parchment or plastic wrap and store at room temperature.

Makes about 12 bars.

Food-My new favorite snack--apples and cheese

Hello folks--

I hope you had or are in the mix of having a great weekend. I had one of those weekends without a schedule (which is a rarity during football season but it was an away game...hallelujah!...and we won the away game so that is also a rarity during our poor "rebuilding year"...anyway, I digress) where my little boy and I had some things to do with no definite schedule and if we got a good nap in on Saturday...all the better!!! My hubbie was driving a group of students down to our Galveston campus to do some lab work down on the big ship, the Clipper II, so he would be gone all day. So, my little one and I went grocery shopping, then to the mall for a quick run in to check on a dress, then to the local half price books to get us both a good read..then home for a nice healthy lunch and then nap time....I love me a nice nap, especially when we both get one, but of course, he got one and I didn't...but I did get to relax a little so that is okay.

Anyway...I have this new favorite snack that I thought I would share...its healthy and easy and colorful to boot! Its apples and cheese. I like the tartness of a Granny Smith and the cheese is a perfect juxtaposition to the tartness. I have found these little Babybel cheeses and they are so cute, fun, creamy, and yum. I bought a whole slew of them at Sam's...so its a good thing I liked them...and now I want to go buy a few more bucket fulls. And its fun to open them since they come in their own little wax ball that you peel off....its fun and cheese all rolled in one!





Here is my son demonstrating...he thinks they are pretty cool too!

These are a great healthy snack! ( By the way, my son is not in a padded room, that is an inflatable mattress leaning against the wall from the company that just left. )






Oh, and by the way...I am still sore from boot camp...but that's a good thing! Its my muscles telling me they love me...its tough love!

Decorating-Edible Arrangments

I love a pretty centerpiece...and I especially love the ones that are also edible! I bought this bag of apples at Sam's and just threw them in this beautiful red bowl and VOILA! Its a lovely arrangement to display...not to mention I can easily grab one on my way out the door.

I am typically a green apple kind of girl, Granny Smith to be exact, but my husband wanted red so here you go. This would look nice mixed with green apples or even lemons or any other bright colored fruit.

Since I am doing this boot camp fitness camp, our nutrition lessons tell us to eat 5 meals a day, basically 3 smaller meals and 2 snacks. Well, your snack needs to have a protein, a crab, and a fat. I like to take one of these apples and snack on it with some slices of good cheese and a few pecans. Apples and peanut butter would also work.

I also really like this way of displaying food because you don't have to make room in your pantry. When we were building our house, we did a custom design and made our pantry 5 feet by 5 feet. (I would have preferred bigger, but that would have taken away from my nice big kitchen...the two biggest rooms in our house are the kitchen and master bedroom, the master bath runs a close 3rd...can you tell where our priorities were? Needless to mention that we didn't have kids yet, although I was going through in vitro) Anyway, our realtor and design consultant kept trying to tell us that we should make that pantry smaller...we said no way and I am so glad we did. There are plenty of times I wish it was bigger. In fact, in my dream home, I have a large room under the stairs that is a hurricane room and a food storage room and a craft room...in fact I want one whole wall full of drawers for me to store stuff...and in my ultimate Utopia, everything is labeled and in its place. Yep, I am one of those girls who wants a label maker for my birthday!