Homemade Granola Bars

My love affair with granola started in high school when I needed a quick breakfast that I could eat in the car. My mom probably should have bought stock in Quaker since she bought so many boxes of Chewy bars. This continued on through college and even as an adult, I find myself buying the huge box of Chewy bars from Costco for breakfasts. I'm not getting on the "processed food is the devil" bandwagon with this one, but I will say that the homemade version of Chewy bars are equally as delicious, easy to make (literally took five minutes while the baby was crawling around the kitchen) and are very inexpensive to make. Also, if you are an allergy sufferer like me, you can use local honey and build up your natural tolerance to the local pollen! Cheaper, probably healthier, and delicious, sounds like a win to me!

Chewy Chocolate Granola Bars
Ingredients:
1 cup of crisp rice cereal
2 cups of rolled oats
1/4 cup of honey
1/3 cup of brown sugar, packed
2 tbsp. butter (or you could use 2 tbsp of your favorite oil)
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup chocolate chips (I used the minis)

Directions:
1. Grease an 8x8 pan (metal or glass)
2. In a medium bowl, combine oats, cereal and chocolate chips, mixing well
3. In a saucepan over medium high heat, melt brown sugar, butter and honey together, stirring very often. Reduce heat to medium after it becomes bubbly and stir constantly for one minute. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract
4. Slowly add the contents of the saucepan to the oat mixture, stirring very well until all of the oat mixture is well coated and it sticks together.
5. Spread mixture into the pan, smoothing out the top with a spoon or spatula.
6. Let cool for an hour before cutting. Cut into bars and store in an air-tight container for up to 7 days.

If you are granola obsessed as I am becoming, check out this website for a ton of yummy recipes: http://foodgawker.com/?s=granola+bars