When you head out to work on the back forty you want to make sure you take everything you need with you, including the fuel your body needs for the day’s work. When you get hungry, you won’t have the convenience of zipping into a fast food restaurant or popping something in the microwave.
Homemade granola bars from Janet and Greta Podleski’s Looneyspoons Collection are perfect for field lunches. These chewy, yummy bars have oats, pumpkin, cranberries, nuts and mini chocolate chips but not the added sugar, additives or high price of store-bought granola bars. You can individually wrap and refrigerate the bars to make portable, grab-and-go snacks that are healthy and filling.
Recipe tips from Greta Podleski
- The smaller you chop your dried cranberries and nuts, the better the bars will hold together.
- For a gluten-free version, make sure your oats are certified gluten- free. Replace the whole-wheat flour with oat flour. Just measure an ad- ditional cup of oats and place them in a food processor, then pulse on and off until the oats are ground to a super-fine consistency, like flour. Measure 1/3 cup oat flour and use it instead of the wheat flour.
- You can use just about any dried fruit and nuts you like, but keep the quantities the same, or the bars may not hold together properly.
- For banana-nut granola bars, use mashed ripe bananas instead of pure pumpkin and replace the dried cranberries with chopped walnuts.
GRAINola Bars
Ingredients
2½ cups quick-cooking oats (not instant) 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
½ cup chopped raw almonds, pecans or pistachios
½ cup chopped dried cranberries
½ cup mini chocolate chips
⅓ cup whole wheat flour
(*for a gluten-free version see tip below)
¼ cup ground flaxseed 1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
¾ cup canned pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
½ cup liquid honey
¼ cup butter, melted 1 tsp vanilla Method
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with parchment paper, letting the paper overhang on two opposite sides (so you can use it as a sling to pick up the granola bars after baking).
- Combine first 9 ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, honey, butter and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients. Mix, using a wooden spoon, until dry ingredients are coated with pumpkin mixture. Make sure there aren’t any dry oats in the bottom of the bowl! Stir, stir, stir!
- Pour the wet granola mixture into the prepared pan and spread it evenly to the edges. Using your hand, press down firmly on the granola so that it’s tightly packed in the pan.
- Bake on middle oven rack for about 25 minutes, until top turns a light golden brown and feels dry to the touch. Remove pan from oven and cool completely on a wire rack. Lift cooled slab of granola from pan by holding onto parchment paper and transfer to a cutting board. Using a large, sharp knife, cut the granola into 16 bars, about 1½ x 4 inches each. (Tip: Press down with the knife to cut the bars and avoid a sawing motion.) Wrap bars tightly in plastic wrap and store in an airtight container, either at room temperature or in the fridge.
Tasty outcome
Makes 16 granola bars
Per bar: 214 calories, 9.7 g total fat (5 g saturated fat), 4 g protein, 30 g carbohydrate, 3.4 g fiber, 9 mg cholesterol, 83 mg sodium