Saturday, February 20, 2010

Chewy Granola Bars

This is the first recipe I tried from a book that has since become a life-saver.  If you are cooking for children with any sort of food allergy, this book is a must-have!  It is called the "Kid Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook" and the nice thing about it is that it offers different recipes, then gives you the appropriate variations depending on the allergy you are working with.  Even for non-allergy kids, there are lots of great kid friendly meals, snacks, and desserts offered.   It was recommended to me by a friend who has been navigating allergies for far longer than I have.  She lent me her copy and I went out to buy my own after the first night.  These granola bars are perfect for anyone!  I found myself addicted to them and I helped my little one polish off the batch we made!  The recipe makes a nice amount of bars and they really do last for a long time.  As long as they are covered well, we can eat them well over a week.  The other nice thing about the recipe is that you can use any combination of add-ins that you have on hand.  It's a nice pantry cleaner! :)  I have made ours with dried apricots, dried cranberries, dried cherries, raisins, soy chocolate chips, etc.  If not working with an allergy, I would love to try cranberries with white chocolate chips.  I think they'd be heavenly!  As a final side note-- I tend to be hesitant to make anything with a lot of coconut because I really am not a huge fan.  The coconut is a must in this one though.  The flavor is incredible, even to a non-fan like me!

Chewy Granola Bars
1 cup butter (If going dairy-free, use soy margarine)
3/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
4 cups oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup chopped nuts
1 cup chocolate chips and your favorite dried fruits (If going dairy free, be sure to use specific soy based chocolate chips)

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.  Grease a 12 x 9 inch cookie sheet.  In a large pan, heat the butter, sugars, and syrup until melted.  Stir in remaining ingredients until evenly combined.  Spread the mixture on a cookie sheet and press down, making sure the surface is smooth and even.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Cool for 20 minutes before cutting into bars.  I will cut some 'adult sized' bars and then some mini-bars for my children.  Once cut, transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Source: The Kid-Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook, by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger

8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I'm so glad to see you back and so glad you son is feeling better. Cooking for allergies is hard at first, but you will find you can cook a lot of regular meals with a bit of changing for his portion. My 15 year old cousin is allergic to milk, egg,and nuts. I babysat him for 7 years and had to learn to cook for him. Now I'm a cook at the high school he attends and have to adjust his portion of meals so he can can eat them. A tip is to look at the cheap versions of food. The only corndogs my cousin have are the cheapies from Aldi... a lot of times the companies cut things like milk to make them cheaper to make. Sometimes you can simply leave the cheese off his portion of a food to make it work. I have a recipe for eggless, milkless cookies on my website you may want to check out. They are called hidden treasure cookies and are great! Did you know hersheys chocolate syrup doesn't contain milk?

    These bars look great! Sorry I had to remove the comment before... somehow it got messed up and parts of sentences were in the wrong place!

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  3. I was excited about the Hershey's syrup until I realized it contained corn syrup, drat! Oh, well.

    So good to see more and more gluten free recipes on the web. Many thanks...

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  4. So glad to see this recipe posted! I have become addicted to these since you began sending them with your little guy. The kids love them too. Thanks for sharing this post!

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  5. Hi...sent you a blog award today!!!
    http://courtenaysbo.blogspot.com/

    Cara

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  6. Hi, I love the idea of chewy granola bars. Yum.

    You might be interested in my giveaway for cookware. http://sweetsav.blogspot.com/2010/03/paula-deen-skillets-yes-giveaway.html

    I am from SITS and I am glad I found your blog.

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  7. I'm definitely putting these bars on my to make list. Grumpy loves his cookies chewy as well as his granola bars!

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