Oatmeal Inspired Granola

The cranberry oatmeal inspired an idea - cranberry granola bars. My daughter, who loves food, was so excited by the idea of making our own granola bars. We love granola bars, but I don't often give her them to eat. Many of the store bought ones are loaded with sugar, and include a host of ingredients I can't pronounce, and even worse, don't recognize. So, after a long google search, I came up with a recipe for us to try.

We mixed together:

2 cups of rolled oats
1/2 cup of ground flax seeds
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups cranberries (frozen or fresh)

Then, we blended together (really well):

1/2 cup of honey (although next time I may lower that to 1/3 of cup - it was a little sweet)
1/2 cup of vegetable oil (next time I may try 1/4 oil, and 1/4 unsweetened applesauce)
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp of vanilla

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well. It's much easier, and funner, to use your hands. Bake in a 350 F oven for about 30 minutes.

Cut and serve. We had them for a mid afternoon snack, and for breakfast Sunday morning. And they stored wonderfully in an airtight container. Chewy and delicious. And next time, for a little treat, we may add in some dark chocolate chunks.

And the best part? Full of ingredients we could pronounce and recognize. Doesn't get much better than that.