Another food post - homemade granola bars!

Today I decided to attempt to make homemade granola bars - in an effort to make something that does not contain sugar alcohols and various chemicals. 

I've seen many recipes on-line for granola bars but the one that most interested me was one for chewy granola bars - (like the Quaker brand ones).  Here's the link to the blog where I found the recipe: http://backtothecuttingboard.com/dessert/no-bake-chewy-granola-bars/

I'm obviously not a food blogger but thought I would share pics of the bars I made - they look almost like bars you would buy!  I made 3 batches but only photographed two of them.  The first batch I made used some purchased Raspberry Vanilla flavored granola.  I simply used 2 cups of that, 1 cup of rice krispies, and the brown sugar, butter, honey syrup.   They turned out great so I was encouraged to go one step further - I made my own granola for the next two batches.  I used the recipe from the link above.  Once the granola was finished, I made a batch of s'more bars - following the directions exactly.

The last batch I made was a peanut butter bar with peanut butter and chocolate chips.  To create this bar, I wanted to add peanut butter to the peanut butter/chocolate recipe on the blog listed above.  I made the following modifications and it seemed to work out perfect:  increase the brown sugar to 3/8 cup and once the syrup has cooked for the 2 minutes, stir in 1/4 cup peanut butter. 

All 3 flavors are YUMMY and a hit with the family.  Going to check out the granola selection at Earth Fare next time I go in - see what other flavors I can create!

Let me know if you try this recipe - I was so excited at how they turned out.

Happy New Year!

First, an apology for being a bad blogger.  It's been a typical holiday season for me - custom framing gets a bit crazy during the holiday season and entails lots of long hours and abnormal shifts.  Once that kicks in, I have a hard time just getting through the days and doing the things that have to be done - so the blog suffers yet again.

On a totally unrelated note, I took the tree down this morning.  And, spent a couple of hours photographing and inventorying all of the ornaments. I typed the inventory sheets into spreadsheets on google docs and will be uploading my photos to an online storage site.  After the 2011 tornados that barely missed us, I have thought quite a bit about the fact that we have no detailed list of our belongings.  And, a list won't do you much good if it is blown away by a tornado, burnt by a fire, etc  - so online storage of the list and photo documentation seems a good way to go.

Of course, a couple of boxes of Christmas stuff is only a tiny drop in the bucket, but there's a reason I started there.  This year, when we went to put up the tree, Harvey went to the attic and brought down a tree and ornaments - but not the ones I wanted.  See, we have two trees and two completely different sets of ornaments.  One tree is huge and the ornaments that go on it are ones we have collected in our 30+ years of married life together - we call it the MEMORY tree.  The other tree is one of the slim trees and the ornaments that decorate it are color themed to coordinate with our home.  To make a long story short - Harvey spent an hour going through every storage container in the attic TWICE to find the box I was looking for.  I vowed then and there that I would get the stuff up there sorted and inventoried, labeled with numbers that correspond to inventory spreadsheets.  Next year I can just tell him which box numbers to bring down.

So, 2 boxes of ornaments and one tree down - the rest is going to wait until we have a nice day and Harvey can bring it all down to the garage.

My questions today are - how many of you have a COMPLETE household inventory?  What format have you used - written lists, computer software, online storage, photos?  And, how thorough have you been - do you itemize book and movie titles, etc?  Or just  count 30 paperbacks, 20 dvds, etc? 

And, last but not least, have you inventoried your craft room?  (I don't want to know how much money sits in this room, LOL)