After realizing how many granola/energy bar wrappers the members of my household throw away every week, I decided I’ve given snack foods a free pass for too long. Non-local ingredients and plenty of wasteful packaging earns my favorite crisps, crackers, chips, and bars two big red Xs and a deafening foghorn blast. Time to get cookin’.
The granola bar recipe I dug up called for 5 cups of granola so I flipped backwards in my big
Whole Grain Baking Cookbook and found instructions for making a huge, heaping bowl of the stuff. Instead of buying two or three cardboard canisters of oats from the grocery store, I ordered two 2-pound bags of organic rolled oats from
King Arthur Flour in recyclable brown paper bags. Norwich, Vermont is outside my 150 miles, but King Arthur’s products are awesome and probably the closest I can get this time of year. (
One Virginia farmer I know is breaking into the local grains market, but his sales are still seasonal.)
I stirred sunflower seeds, walnuts, peanuts, and flax seeds in with the oats, then baked the mixture at a low 250 degrees (repressed childhood memories of burnt granola came flashing back). I wanted a plain jane base so I could jazz up my bars and make a variety of flavors that could compete with Cliff’s.
With a choice of apricot, cherry-coconut, or chocolate-peanut butter, *and* a zero-waste reusable container, how can I resist these babies? I still have to take into account the packaging for the ingredients—paper bag for oats, plastic for apricots and nuts, glass bottle for vanilla, etc.—but because these come in bulk, I get way more than one use out of each. Although I didn’t use locally grown products and I did (shh!) use a tablespoon of corn syrup, I’m pretty excited about the fact that I can make my own granola bars. The question is—will I keep it up or revert to the conveniently (yet oh so wastefully) packaged ones?
The granola bar recipe I dug up called for 5 cups of granola so I flipped backwards in my big Whole Grain Baking Cookbook and found instructions for making a huge, heaping bowl of the stuff. Instead of buying two or three cardboard canisters of oats from the grocery store, I ordered two 2-pound bags of organic rolled oats from King Arthur Flour in recyclable brown paper bags. Norwich, Vermont is outside my 150 miles, but King Arthur’s products are awesome and probably the closest I can get this time of year. (One Virginia farmer I know is breaking into the local grains market, but his sales are still seasonal.)
I stirred sunflower seeds, walnuts, peanuts, and flax seeds in with the oats, then baked the mixture at a low 250 degrees (repressed childhood memories of burnt granola came flashing back). I wanted a plain jane base so I could jazz up my bars and make a variety of flavors that could compete with Cliff’s.
With a choice of apricot, cherry-coconut, or chocolate-peanut butter, *and* a zero-waste reusable container, how can I resist these babies? I still have to take into account the packaging for the ingredients—paper bag for oats, plastic for apricots and nuts, glass bottle for vanilla, etc.—but because these come in bulk, I get way more than one use out of each. Although I didn’t use locally grown products and I did (shh!) use a tablespoon of corn syrup, I’m pretty excited about the fact that I can make my own granola bars. The question is—will I keep it up or revert to the conveniently (yet oh so wastefully) packaged ones?
Yum! I am working on a post about my homemade english muffins that just came out of the oven (a less interesting palate, but oh so good).
ReplyDelete... K. Arthur online!! Oh dear, I am in trouble (in a good way).
ReplyDeleteYay, I can't wait to see pics of the english muffins! I have never had one fresh out of the oven, but I imagining it now...with melting butter...yowzah!
ReplyDeleteIt's the convenience, snacky foods that get us, isn't it? My sister-in-law had homemade granola bars at her house over the holidays because her partner is allergic to peanuts. They were delicious! How are you keeping these fresh, Brynn? Can you just put them in reusable containers? How long will they keep? They do look delicious!
ReplyDeleteWow. I love the photos. Do they compete with Cliff's? I had the Cliff Carrot Cake a couple days ago. It was delectable.
ReplyDeleteDeveloping the base (original) flavor, then working on different varieties is a good idea. I'm inspired to try my hand at energy bar goodness. I'll bring the product to class this coming weekend.
The bars have actually stayed really fresh and moist in my big glass bowl with an air-tight lid. Then I pop them into smaller containers for lunches. Greg has still not caught on to this idea because I continue to see him sneak out the pre-wrapped Trader Joe's bars from the cupboard, look at me wide-eyed and stammer "What?"
ReplyDeleteI think these are darn close to Cliff's! Not as dense, but that may be due to the larger grain of the ingredients I used. I like the chunkier style better (less brick-like) so this suits me fine, but if you wanted it finer, you could probably achieve that by pulsing the oats and stuff in the food processor before baking.