Granola

We've been making our own granola bars for awhile now ever since we saw it on an episode of "Good Eats" on the Food Network. I like these better than the packaged ones you buy in stores since you can put what you want in them and they're not so full of sugar. The official recipe is:

Dry Ingredients
8 ounces of oats
1.5 oz of wheat germ
1.5 oz of raw sunflower seeds
3 oz of almonds

The other ingredients
6 oz honey
1.75 oz brown sugar
1 oz butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Since I don't like to use the official recipe we have experimented a few times and found some combinations we like. In this particular batch we used a big pile of oats and smaller piles of wheat germ, flax seed, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.

1. Mix up the dry ingredients on a cookie sheet and toast for 15 minutes at 350 degrees stirring occasionally.

2. Bring the other ingredients to a boil on the stove top. We generally use half a honey bear, some brown sugar, vanilla, and peanut butter.

3. Take the toasted dry ingredients out of the oven and mix into the liquid.

4. Grease a glass baking pan and pour the mixture in. Press down firmly with another pan.

5. Bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes.

6. Let them cool and slice 'em up.

There, now everyone can be on their way to healthier snacks. Warning, these don't taste like the store bought variety and some people may not like them. If you fall into this category I would suggest purchasing the ones you like in the store.

Junior

We had an appointment on Friday and everything is going fine -- nothing new to report. There's another appoinment this Friday. We're in the homestretch now!

Allison had her baby shower this weekend over at Mike and Michelle's. We had friends in town from Fargo, Iowa, Omaha, and of course the Minneapolis metro area. Junior was very appreciative of all the nice presents he received. He's lucky to have such a great group of friends and family. I'll try to get some Junior related pictures up soon.

Good Night.