Yummy Granola Bars

½ cup brown sugar
½ cup corn syrup
½ cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups oats
2 ½ cups rice krispies

Mix the corn syrup and brown sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the peanut butter and vanilla and stir to blend. Mix the oats and cereal. Pour the peanut butter mixture over the oat mixture and stir. Wait a few minutes, then add whatever you want: chocolate chips, ½ cup more peanut butter, almonds, raisins, marshmallows… the sky is the limit…. Press this mixture into a 13x9 cake pan that you’ve lined with waxed paper. You might have to press pretty hard to get the mixture even in the pan… Pull on the waxed paper to lift the whole mixture out of the pan. Cut into bars (I make 16 bars). Then move it back to the pan, and into the fridge to harden. I wrap them individually in plastic wrap to send with Doug for lunches or to throw into the diaper bag for snacks on the go with the kids. These really take no time at all to make, really less than ½ hour. If you can make rice krispies treats, you can do this.

So far, my favorite variety is with salted peanuts, m&m’s and marshmallows. (I just love the combination of salty and sweet.) I’m going to try dried cranberries and slivered almonds next. And then dried apricot and walnut. I also want to try using a different cereal, at least partially, maybe 1 cup honey bunches of oats cereal in place of 1 cup of the rice krispies… and maybe some crushed graham crackers, chocolate chips and marshmallows for a s’mores flavor… Or what about adding in ½ cup of Nutella… Once these are hardened you could also dip them in chocolate like Kudos bars. Or you can melt peanut butter chips and put a peanut butter coating…

As you can see, I really like this recipe. We almost always have granola bars in our pantry, but now I can make them how I want them, and they are so much cheaper to make than to buy. Try this recipe! You won’t regret it! Thanks for an awesome recipe, Julie!