I had several of you ask me for my home made granola bar recipe, so I finally took a moment to type it up for you.
As I mentioned last week, it is not frugal in the way of dollars, as the nuts and seeds that are in it are not inexpensive to purchase. But if you are like me, and have to be very careful about what you eat, it can still be a frugal recipe over purchasing the high end granola bars! And, of course, if having things at home ready to pack your own lunch encourages you to do so instead of purchasing your meal out, well, that can be money saving as well! So following is the recipe I used, with the few tweeks I made:
Granola Bars
1 1/2 c. mashed ripe banana (about 3 large)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. rolled oats
1/2 c. dried cranberries
1/2 c. walnuts, chopped
1/2 c. sunflower seeds
1/2 c. pepita seeds (these are hulled pumpkin seeds--I found my package at Aldi's!)
1/2 c. chopped almonds
1/4 c. flax seed, ground
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray a large baking dish (9x13) with baking spray, and line with a piece of parchment paper with some hanging over the edges, so the bars are easier to remove.
2. In a large bowl, mash the banana until smooth. Measure to make sure you have 1 1/2 c. If you have extra mashed banana, freeze it and use it later in a smoothie.
3. Stir in the vanilla.
4. Place the oats into a food processor (or blender on lowest speed) and pulse until the oats are coarsely chopped but still have texture. Stir the chopped oats into the banana mixture.
5. Stir the dried fruit, walnuts, sunflower and peptic seeds, almonds, flax seed, cinnamon, and salt into the banana-oat mixture until thoroughly combined. The dough will be very heavy and a bit wet.
6. Spoon the mixture into the prepared dish. With lightly wet hands, smooth out until even and uniform. Press down on the dough until compacted.
7. Bake for 22-26 minutes, until firm and lightly golden along the edges.
8. Place the dish on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then carefully slide a knife to loosen the ends and gently lift out. Place the slab on a cooling rack until completely cool.
9. Once cool, slice into bars. I used a pizza slicer and it easily cut through the dried fruit and nuts. Wrap leftovers individually in wax paper and tape closed. Store in a large freezer gallon bag in the freezer.
I hope this recipe helps some of you out who cannot eat the processed, commercially made granola bars! Or those who simply want to eat more healthy, and avoid all the added sugars and such that are of necessity put into the shelf stable products.
So on to this week--my daughter and I went shopping at a local thrift store, looking for clothes for her. She is at that difficult to find size--just barely out of the children's sizes, yet not quite big enough to consistently fit in the ladies sizes! We managed to find a pair of jeans for her that were a ladies size 2, for around $3.00 I believe. They MOSTLY fit--the waist is a tiny bit big, but she has a belt so can take care of it that way. Then, on a second trip a day or so later, we found a lovely hand made wool skirt for $3.25. It is a plaid skirt, and I am amazed at how well the plaid is lined up at the sides, as well as the neatness of the pleats, etc. I have a little clothing sewing experience on simple garments, and this skirt was very well made! The picture does not do it justice--it is just adorable on my daughter, but since I did not get a picture of her in the skirt, this pic will have to do!
It is not really crooked as this pic makes it look--it was hanging on the hanger all crazy! But it will at least give you an idea of what it looks like. It matches her white sweater, her gray sweater, her black sweater, and looks pretty good with a dark blue sweater, all of which she already had. Now we just need the weather to turn cold enough that she is needing to wear wool and sweaters and such! And both the jeans as well as this wool skirt were purchased with the last bit of my $10 gift certificate that the thrift store gave me for my birthday, since I am one of their volunteers! I would volunteer for them anyway, but I sure have appreciated their giving me a birthday gift certificate!!!
What did you do this week to save money???
Leave your answer in the comments. :)
~Susan
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