Really Good Vegan Granola Bars

Sometimes it's a challenge to find a product that is vegan to replace other products I used to use.  Finding a good granola bar has been one of those things.  The ones I found that were vegan often were not very tasty.  So I started searching for a recipe.  I make a batch of these and we have lunch snacks for the whole week.  After some experimentation this is the recipe I settled on.  It's a little tricky to cook it for the right time and removing them from the pan - but once I did a few times I figured out the tricks.  Here's my version of this recipe (I found somewhere online).

Ingredients:

• 1 cup organic wheat flour
• 2.5 cups organic rolled oats
• 3/4-1 cup unpasturized honey (other options: Organic Maple Syrup, Brown Rice Syrup)
• 2/3 cup organic peanut butter
• 1/2 cup wheat germ (other options: Chia Seed)
• MIXES: 2 cups of your choice - you can mix up any ingredients like these (I try for organic where available) - her are some ideas for your combos:
• Coconut (one of my favourites)
• Dried Fruit (I like dried cranberries)
• Almonds, Peanuts, Walnuts, Cashews, etc.
• Raisins 
• Hemp Seeds

Heat oven to 350 - cooking time is 15-20 minutes depending on oven - bake until barely brown on top.

1. Mix the honey (unpasturized) and peanut butter until smooth.  

I do this right in the pot - if it's hard to mix I turn the heat on low until ingredients warm up a little

2. Blend the Mixes in a food processor.  I used 1 cup coconut, 1 cup nuts.

3. Add the mixes, oats, flour, and wheat germ (or Chia Seed) - mix this all up really well.  If it's too dry add some water a teaspoon at a time - if too wet add some oats a tbsp at a time.  

This will need to stick together - fully blend it 

3. Grease a lasagna pan & pack the granola down hard into the pan. 

Use your hands to pack this down

4. Bake around 15-20 minutes - keep checking - it should just be dry on the top - if you overcook they will crumble apart (you'll recognize that's what happened).  Immediately cut & remove from pan when you take them out of the oven.  Get into sealed container as soon as they are cooled a bit. You can freeze these too - but we always finish them too fast for that.  I use wax paper to layer them in a rectangle container.

Trick to cutting - I use a fry pan lifter with a sharp edge as my knife and lifter.