Easy Homemade Chocolate Pecan Pie Granola Made with Sorghum and Olive Oil

My youngest is becoming more and more like me everyday. It's not just the way that he looks and acts, but the way that he approaches life in general. He makes the sames faces and reacts to situations much the same way that I do. In addition he has a very high metabolism and a huge snacking habit just like me. He literally seems to eat from sun up until sun down. My oldest is also a big snacker, especially when he gets home from school. Due to the fact that my family is full of people who love snacks I try to keep as many healthy snacking options as I can. One snack that my whole family loves is granola. Since store bought granola is so expensive and almost all brands have gluten I have learned to make my own granola at home. Today I tried a new recipe for Chocolate-Pecan Pie Granola from the November 2012 issue of Southern Living.

This recipe has 8 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 10 minutes of which is active and makes 6 cups of granola. I made considerable changes to this recipe. First off the thought of using butter and dark corn syrup to make granola just wasn't something that sounded healthy or delicious to me. I try to reduce artificial sugars and saturated fat from dairy when I can. So I modified the recipe to work with the ingredients that I already had in my cupboard. First, instead of the butter I used olive oil. I love using olive oil in baking, it is much lower in saturated fat than butter and the texture and taste is similar. Instead of the dark corn syrup I used sorghum. I love using sorghum, molasses or honey in recipes that call for corn syrup. Agave syrup would be another option that would also work. All of these options are good substitutes for granulated sugar or corn syrup in recipes. It was brought to my attention after I wrote this up for the first time that I failed to mention that I modified the wheat germ. I eat gluten free (I have to due to health reasons), so I left out the wheat germ and added a 1/2 cup of brown rice flour. When I added the granola to the pan I pressed it down with a spatula until it was flattened. Make sure to stir the granola every ten minutes or it will burn. I let the granola partially cool and then I broke it into bits and added the chocolate when it was still a little warm in order that the chocolate partially melted. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

Making all the changes to this recipe worked very well. The sorghum gave the granola a great taste and the olive oil made the granola a healthier breakfast or snacking option. My husband felt that the chocolate pieces were unnecessary, he would like the granola without the chocolate. However, my two boys were big fans of the chocolate pieces, so it would work either way depending on how sweet you want your granola. Overall, a delicious granola recipe that I would make again following my changes.

For the recipe go to Chocolate-Pecan Pie Granola.

Pistachio, Dried Cranberry, Coconut and Agave Syrup Homemade Granola

Mornings in my house are always crazy. With two boys, one of which is in school it is always a rush to get out the door to the bus. I have become great at putting on make-up in three minutes (and having it still look great) and I am the queen of 5 minute showers. My two boys on the other hand move like molasses. It doesn't help that many mornings my oldest is finishing his homework from the night before or my youngest is unhappy and massively grumpy from having to wake-up in the first place. Normally breakfast for myself takes a backseat and I am often left with only coffee until lunch. I try to keep at least a few things on hand that are quick to grab on the run. This week I tried a new recipe for Captain Crunch - A Better Granola from Bon Appetit magazine.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes 1 hour of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 12 servings. For the nuts I used pistachios since they are a family favorite. I have never seen coconut shaving at my local store so I substitute unsweetened coconut. Finally I used olive oil instead of coconut oil since coconut oil is much higher in saturated fat. So every once in a while a recipe doesn't turn out at all. This recipe was one of those cases. I had to completely redo the recipe after it came out of the oven. First the granola as written came out dry and with no crunch or clump at all. Therefore I added additional olive oil and a 1/2 cup of honey. Then I placed it back in the oven for 20 minutes. When it came out I let it cool and then broke it into chunks. After my modifications it was perfect. I would suggest adding honey instead of the agave and adding additional olive oil. The texture was definitely better with the modifications.

With my changes this recipe was very popular with my family. Before the changes the granola was too salty and did not hold together at all. It would be better as a yogurt topping, but if you are looking for a granola recipe you need to make changes such as I did by adding additional honey and oil. My two boys really loved the granola after the changes and ate over half of the batch.

For the recipe go to A Better Granola.

Quinoa-Pumpkin Seed Granola

My normally good eating habits haven't been so great since Thanksgiving. The holidays seem to have gotten to me this year and my food choices have gone down hill. Don't get me wrong I still have cooked from scratch and enjoyed healthy dinners, but I have snacked more than usual and eaten more sugar. Luckily I haven't gained any weight, but I feel less than my normal self so I know that it's time to get back on track. One of the major things that I haven't been doing well with the last couple of months is breakfast. I have been good about eating breakfast since I had low potassium last winter. However, since Thanksgiving I have been skipping breakfast or not eating enough protein in the morning. This weekend I decided to get back on track and made some healthy snacks for the week. One of the new recipes I tried was for Quinoa-Pumpkin Seed Granola from the January issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 50 minutes of total time, 20 minutes of which is active and makes 13 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store. I chose to use dried cherries for the dried fruit called for in the recipe. The recipe states to stir the mixture twice, but I forgot one of the stirs, so I only did a total of one stir half-way through the baking time. I kept my granola in larger pieces since I was going to eat it as a snack instead of with milk. I think I prefer the large chunks like I made. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My husband and I really enjoyed this granola. The quinoa was great, I loved how it was crunchy and the whole almonds were delicious. The cranberries provided a nice sweet contrast to the crunchiness of the nuts. My husband thought that it would be even better for adults with a small amount of cayenne pepper to have a sweet/spicy combination.

For the recipe go to Quinoa-Pumpkin Seed Granola. (registration required)

Chewy Granola Bites

I love snacks. Growing-up I ate more snacks than anyone else I knew. I seemed to always be snacking. When I don't snack I get very cranky, not just a little bit but I literally go from nice to mean in a matter of seconds. A lot of it has to do with my blood sugar. When I was pregnant with my youngest son they had me monitor my blood sugar levels and it turned out that my blood sugar crashes relatively frequently. When my blood sugar crashes I turn nasty. So I make sure to keep high protein healthy snacks around to avoid these mood swings. My two boys can be just as grumpy as I can without snacks. In particular my oldest has a hard time focusing on school work and gets in far more trouble when he doesn't eat enough. I am always on the lookout for new recipes and last week I tried a new one for Chewy Granola Bites from Parents magazine, which looked perfect for snacking.

This recipe has 5 ingredients. It takes 20 minutes of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes approximately 30 balls. I made a number of modifications to this recipe. First I am not a fan of regular white rice cereal and my local grocery store didn't have brown rice cereal, so I substituted flax cereal instead. I chose to use almond butter, I prefer the taste and texture in recipes. Finally I ran out of granola (thanks to my husband and two boys eating most of the bag) so I only used a cup of granola and 1 1/2 cups of flax cereal. Instead of making thirty balls, I made my snacks larger and had a total of 15. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My two boys loved these snacks. They literally ate them all in one afternoon. I like that they are no-bakes and take very little effort to put together. They are so easy that my oldest was able to help me with the entire recipe. Plus they are full of nutrition from the peanut butter and flax cereal.

For the recipe go to Chewy Granola Bites.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Cookies

 If you've been reading my blog recently you may have noticed that I have given up eating gluten. I was having horrible stomach problems and with a family history of gluten intolerance it was the most likely culprit. So I stopped eating gluten and within a week felt much, much better. The only problem is that I love baked goods. The thought of giving up baked goods troubled me more than just a slight amount. So I decided to try my hand at making gluten-free baked goods. I tried a few recipes that turned out less than great. They either did not rise or the taste felt like it was missing something. So I kept looking and trying. Finally, I found some recipes that worked great and tasted just as good as their gluten counterparts. Last week I tried a new recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Cookies from Food and Wine magazine, which with four ingredients looked very easy and great for gluten-free snacks.

This recipe has 4 ingredients. It takes 1 hour of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 12 cookies. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store and made no ingredient modifications. If you are gluten-free like I am make sure to check your labels on both the granola and peanut butter to ensure that they are in fact gluten-free. These cookies were done in exactly 15 minutes, so be careful to not let them burn. I rotated the baking sheet halfway through the time to ensure even cooking. These cookies are very crumbly when they are first taken out of the oven. Do not move them off the baking sheet until they have cooled slightly or they will fall apart. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I love how easy these cookies are to make. With only 4 ingredients they go together very easily and only take minutes to prepare. My kids absolutely loved these and I ended up having to make another batch since they were gone so quickly. Using peanut butter makes the cookies easy to make and have a delicious flavor. Great for an after school snack!

For the recipe go to Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Cookies.

Family Fun No-Bake Chewy Granola Bars

My family loves to snack. A couple of years back I tried reducing the amount of snacks that I had in the house and all that ended up resulting was my husband going to the mini-mart multiple times a week. So, since that didn't work out so effectively I decided to try to make as many snacks as I could from scratch, instead of relying solely on pre-packaged alternatives. I have tried many snack recipes since that time, some have been great, some less than stellar. Nevertheless I keep trying out new snack options to see which ones stick. The September issue of Family Fun magazine had a recipe for No-Bake Chewy Granola Bars using cashew butter, which looked like a delicious change of pace from my normal granola bar recipes.

This recipe has 7 ingredients. It makes 24 bars and takes approximately 75 minutes, 15 minutes of which is active. Most of the ingredients for this recipe I already had in my pantry cupboard, with the exception of cashew butter, which I was able to find in the organic section of my local grocery store. I had never bought cashew butter for my family before this recipe and my husband and two-year-old absolutely feel in love with it. I did notice a few things with the recipe. My finished granola bars were still very sticky after cooling for an hour, so I placed them in the fridge to firm. After sitting in the fridge the texture was much better, but different than the photograph in the magazine. I'm guessing that the granola cereal that I bought might have had a different texture than the one photographed for the article. I followed the recipe as stated stated, with no modifications.

My two boys thoroughly enjoyed these granola bars and have eaten almost the whole batch since I made them yesterday. My husband liked the taste of the cashew butter, but is not a fan of light corn syrup and would have preferred honey instead. I thought that this recipe was very easy and it was nice discovering that my family likes cashew butter. If cashew butter is unavailable in your area, or to save money peanut butter could also be substituted. Overall, a tasty and easy granola bar recipe.

For the recipe go to No-Bake Chewy Granola Bars.

All You Fruit and Nut Granola Bars

Since my oldest started kindergarten last week, I've been working on finding after-school and breakfast snacks. Most days he comes home ravenous and wants to eat everything in site, so I've been searching for high protein snack options that will tide him over until I finish dinner. Most of the recipes that I have come across have been high in sugar, with little fiber or protein. I was pleased when the August issue of All You magazine had a recipe for Fruit and Nut Granola Bars, which had both fiber and 6 grams of protein per serving.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. I actually ended up making the recipe twice. The first time I followed the recipe as stated and was disappointed by how dry the granola bars turned out. For the second attempt I modified the recipe. Instead of using a 1/3 cup of maple syrup, I substituted a 1/2 cup of honey. This allowed the granola bars to bind together better in the pan and made for an overall crunchier bar. Additionally, no one in my household really appreciates walnuts, so I substituted pecans. Finally, I ran out of dried apples in the second batch, so I used both golden and regular raisins instead.

My second attempt at these bars turned out really well. The substitution of the honey was delicious and helped the bars to bind together much more effectively. These granola bars would work well with a variety of dried fruits, such as cranberries or blueberries or even chocolate chips. This recipe is a great after-school snack, that would work well with a number of different ingredients.

For the recipe go to All You Fruit and Nut Granola Bars.