The other day I was psyched to make my own spin-off of Family Fresh Cooking’s Telluride Trail Bars. Granola bars have been on my “to-make” list for some time now and when my mom put me on grocery shopping duty, I couldn’t resist picking up the ingredients. My excitement took a turn for the worse, though, quickly spiraling into disappointment and utter frustration when they didn’t turn out as planned. Flaky, dry mess. Wahhhh! I blame it on Stop & Shop’s not-ripe-enough bananas…and the fact that I forgot to add the agave nectar prior to cooking. Oops. Although they didn’t stick together into crunchy bars, what I thought was a flop recipe turned into a great granola.
Ingredients
2 cups toasted Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
1/2 cup chopped and toasted peanuts
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
3 bananas
1/2 cup chopped whole wheat pretzels
2 tablespoons coconut oil
Cinnamon, flaxseeds and shredded coconut to top
Agave nectar (or maple syrup/natural sweetener to taste)
To start, preheat the oven to 350˚F. On a baking sheet, place chopped peanuts and rolled oats in a thin layer. Bake for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
Like I did in my Nutty Nanner Overnight Oats, slice up the bananas and cook in a small sauce pan until lightly browned. Mash it all up and add in the PB so it softens. While those are getting ooey gooey on the stove, chop up your pretzels.
Time for the fun part, adding it all together and mixing it up. NOTE: This is where you should add the sweetener of your choice.
Line a 9×13″ pan with wax paper and add the granola mixture. Press/shape evenly. Sprinkle cinnamon, flaxseeds and shredded coconut on top. Drizzle some more agave nectar on top before poppin’ it in the oven.
So…like I said, these did not turn out as I had hoped in bar form BUT the recipe still tasted great. I broke it up into small clusters and took my Go Lean Kashi cereal and Silk Light Vanilla soy milk breakfast up a nutty notch by topping it with my recipe faux pas. Moral of the story? As the saying goes, “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”
Gotta love Kashi, although this concoction of mine also goes wonderfully with oatmeal or overnight oats! SOOooo what will I change next time I attempt to make granola bars (which I will be doing soon because I’m headstrong and a perfectionist)? My recipe alterations include the following: 1) Use 4 very ripe, speckled brown bananas, the kind, ya know, good for banana bread! 2) Cut out the pretzels because it just added to the dryness. 3) You may have noticed that I added coconut oil, which I had hoped would help in the moisture department. Fail. I will play around with this ingredient and get back to you on my verdict! 4) Add dried fruit. Welp, ya win some and ya lose some…lucky for me this “loss” ended up having quite the turnaround in the granola department. Yay!
Have you made your own granola or granola bars? Any tips or tricks you’d like to share?
Sprinkled with Love,
Lauren
