Granola Bars!

I got this recipe from Clean Eating - a really cool, inexpensive, non-time consuming cooking magazine. I didn't follow the recipe exactly (instead of using the specific berries they mention, I just bought a cheaper Berry Medley at Trader Joe's). I also lined the pan with wax paper so that I could just lift it out when it was done baking and I'm almost positive that made life so much easier.

So, recipe!

Makes probably about 40 granola bites
Takes about 20 minutes to throw together, 10 to 15 minutes to cut
Bake time is 25 to 30 minutes

Ingredients:
Wax paper or cooking spray for the pan
4 cups old fashioned oatmeal (aka not instant)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg plus 3 egg whites
1 cup unsweetened applesauce (I didn't have this, so I cut up a couple of apples and cooked them in a pan like for an apple pie, then mushed them like mashed potatoes...I have a lot of free time....)
3 tbs honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chopped dried apricots
1/3 cup dried blueberries
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup unsalted slivered almonds (I used pecans from our freezer)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a roughly 11 x 8 inch baking dish, press in the wax paper (you should still have extra sticking up to grab a hold of later) or grease the pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together oats, flour and cinnamon. The better it's stirred together now, the easier this is later - you don't want chunks of flour in your granola bars.

Yummmm! Mix those cinnamon, oats and flour! 

In a medium bowl, whisk egg and egg whites. Add applesauce, honey and vanilla until smooth. 

Whisk together egg, egg whites, applesauce, honey and vanilla.

Side note, I didn't have applesauce, so I cut and peeled two apples
and cooked them a la apple pie, then mushed like mashed potatoes.

Stir this into the flour/oat/cinnamon mixture and mix it really, really well (see don't want any flour chunks.) Finally, add the measurements above, or the entire package of Berry Medley. (I originally used the measurements given, but had so little left in the package, I went ahead and dumped it all in.) Mix that well.

Next, dump all of that into the pan and press out with your fingers. Sprinkle the almonds/whatever you have on hand on top. Then, I used a second sheet of wax paper on top to really press it down firmly and get it pretty flat. Peel back that top layer of waxed paper, and it's ready to go in the oven!

Bake it for 25 - 30 minutes, until a toothpick/butter knife comes out clean (like when you bake a cake.) Mine ended up having to cook for the full 30 minutes, but it's always good to check because you would't want dry, crumbly granola bars.

Finally, when it's completely cool, lift the wax paper out of the pan. Rather than peeling it off right away, I went ahead and cut the granola bars into strips, then slowly worked them off the wax paper. I ended up making smaller squares because I was worried a whole bar would be too much weight and they'd end up breaking while you ate them. So, I made them smaller et voila! Granola bites! 

I was a little skeptical at first (they tasted a lot like flour/oatmeal the first day) but once they set overnight, I thought they tasted much better.

Hope you enjoy the recipe!!