Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Snack Bars

Here is another recipe that has made it into our homemade snack rotation. They started with the very popular recipe Playgroup Granola Bars on allrecipes.com. My friend Lys made them for me and my kids during a play date and they were a big hit. As always, I have made many modifications. I use chocolate chips instead of raisins, which was actually Lys' innovation. Of course, if I had used only raisins I could have called my recipe "refined sugar-free" or something. But oh well. Chocolate chips make them extra appealing.

I use white whole wheat flour (instead of white flour plus wheat germ). You could probably use whole wheat flour plus wheat germ, but I don't happen to stock wheat germ. I cut the brown sugar entirely, because they really are plenty sweet with just the honey. I also tried substituting applesauce for some of the oil and that works too. I make them both ways depending on whether I have an open jar of applesauce on hand or not. I also added some nuts. As with all my favorite healthy homemade snacks, these freeze extremely well and are perfect for lunch boxes, picnics, and on-the-go snacking.

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Easy-peasy DIY Trail Mix

A few months ago, my husband returned from a business trip with a  partially eaten bag of trail mix purchased in the airport. It was probably the healthiest option available in the airport convenience store. Snacking on the store-bought mix had given my husband a new appreciation for trail mix, and he told me he planned to stock up on bags of trail mix at the grocery store to keep with him at work for healthy snacking.

That I simply could not stomach. Making trail mix is far too easy to spend your money on the version at the grocery store. Plus the airport version included fake M&Ms and hydrogenated vegetable oil. Yuck. Even the mixes at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods often have added sugar and other unnecessary ingredients. I quickly whipped up a version using ingredients I already had on hand. If you make granola, or regularly purchase nuts and dried fruit, you already have everything you need to make your own trail mix.

DIY Trail Mix

2 parts nuts
1 part dried fruit
1 part chocolate chips

Measure and mix. Store in an air-tight container (I like to use a glass quart canning jar). Lasts for several weeks. 

Why should you bother making your own trail mix?

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100% Whole Grain Muffins with Applesauce

In my endless quest to amass a repertoire of healthy kid-friendly portable snacks, I stumbled upon this Healthy Applesauce Oat Muffin recipe on Mel's Kitchen Cafe. These muffins have turned into a huge hit at my house. They are perfect for a little breakfast snack or sweet snack any time of day. I now make the quadruple recipe because I am all about baking and freezing in bulk. Since they are whole grain they freeze and defrost very nicely.

I have modified the original recipe quite a bit. The first time I made it, I followed the recipe. They came out much too wet (little puddles under the cupcake liners) and excessively sweet, although still entirely edible. I imagine that what kind of applesauce you use, and how thick (versus watery) it is will affect how much applesauce it is appropriate to use. I use Trader Joe's organic unsweetened applesauce and found that decreasing it by a quarter worked well. I also cut the sugar by half (still plenty sweet!) and found that I could decrease the fat by a quarter. I also tend to be generous with the cinnamon and vanilla, with no ill effects. In addition, I let the batter sit for a bit after mixing to make sure the whole grains have plenty of time to absorb the liquid. I'm not sure this is strictly necessary, but I find this to be a good policy in general when dealing with whole grains (I do this with my whole grain pancakes).

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Homemade Chewy (Not Crumbly) Granola Bars

At last, I have found a granola bar recipe that my kids love. Good enough that they don't ask me to buy the Trader Joe's granola bars anymore. Good enough that my husband has stopped putting granola bars on the grocery list. I alternate making granola bars with my whole-grain "cookies," so that I always have a delicious kid-friendly snack that's easy to take and eat on-the-go.

I've been looking for the perfect granola bar recipe for a while. Over a period of many months (years?), I've googled, perused, and bookmarked a gazillion recipes. Then I tried the most promising ones. Some recipe authors admitted that their granola bars were crumbly. I did not want crumbly. After making a few duds, I decided to try Bittman's granola bar recipe (the peanut butter variation) which uses granola, oil, honey, and peanut butter.

For the "3 cups not-too-sweet granola" I used my usual granola recipe. The bars were chewy (yes!) but also way too sweet. I tried using significantly less honey, but that made them crumbly. In any granola bar recipe, the sweetener is the glue or binder that holds the granola together. So I made a modified version of my granola recipe with no sweetener, and then used that not-at-all sweet granola to make the granola bars. I also used a little less peanut butter and honey than the original recipe called for and they are still wonderfully chewy. I've made these with almond butter as well. Note that the recipe below is double the size of the Bittman recipe.

Eco-novices Chewy (Not Crumbly) Granola Bars

Combine:
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup sliced or slivered almonds
1/3 cup sunflower/ sesame seeds
2/3 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup oil

Bake 20-25 minutes at 325 on half-sheet pan, stirring every 5-10 minutes. Let cool and then put into a large mixing bowl. This gives you 6 cups not-sweet granola.

Combine in a sauce pan and heat until boiling on the stove (don't let it burn!):1/2 cup oil
1 cup honey
2/3 cup peanut butter (or other nut butter, such as almond)

Pour boiling mixture into bowl of 6 cups granola (entire recipe above). Mix well. Push into greased 9x13 pan (I use butter to grease). Use a spatula to press down and spread evenly. Cool in refrigerator. After a few hours and once completely cooled, take out of fridge and let them warm up a bit so you can easily slice with a knife or bench scraper into bars. Store in air-tight container.

I store mine in Pyrex in the fridge with wax paper between the layers (see photo above). I also always keep 3 or 4 in a small reusable container in the fridge, so that I have something I can quickly grab and take with me to the park or other outing. In my experience, they keep for at least 2 weeks in the fridge.

As you might imagine, they are also just delicious with chocolate chips thrown in (while hot, if you want melted chocolate mixed throughout or once cooled a bit you can put chips on top). I consider the chocolate version to be a sort of homemade candy bar. Dried fruit could easily be added in as well (stir into granola mix before adding hot liquid mixture).

Do you make granola bars? What is your favorite recipe?

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Healthy Homemade Snack: Whole Grain "Cookies" (Updated Recipe)

Three months ago I posted the recipe for our favorite on-the-go snack:  whole grain "cookies."  Since then, I have tweaked the recipe a bit, and this is now my preferred version.  I switched to all honey, after writing this post about sweeteners.  I also added another egg for more protein (why not?), and a little more milk, so they would be more cakey and less crumbly.  This makes them a bit less messy for my toddler to eat.  I also use double the raisins now after a failed experiment with chocolate chips (my toddler picked them out, which was extremely messy).

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Whole Grain "Cookies"

I am always on the lookout for a good homemade snack recipe that is easy to eat on-the-go. My son really likes granola bars, but I dislike all that packaging and the long list of ingredients. These "cookies" freeze extremely well, are 100% whole grain (whole wheat and old-fashioned rolled oats) and have about half the sugar of a typical cookie recipe.  This recipe is pretty darn cheap too. Whenever we are on our way out of the house, I pull a few "cookies" out of the freezer and put them in one of my reusable food bags. They are easy for both my toddler and preschooler to eat, and I love them too. I often catch my husband sneaking one out of the freezer as a snack at home.

[Update 30 June 2011: Check out my latest version of this recipe in this post.]

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