Almost always

I would almost always rather have another helping of dinner than have dessert, but when I was pregnant, I wasn't able to leave sweets alone.

I also craved sandwiches, big time. Cold, turkey sandwiches with lots of mayo. I once drove an excessive distance to Jimmy John's during a workday in order to get such a sandwich. After devouring it in my car, I went in and bought another because the first one didn't have enough mayo.

I am pretty embarrassed by that story and thought I would never share it until I recently heard that one of my other friends took a cab - from the suburbs - to JJ's when she was pregnant.

But I digress.

In addition to loving all things savory, I also like to save money. So when David said we needed more granola bars, I set out to make our own. I had tried making them before, but with less than favorable results.* They were always too crunchy, and/or they didn't stick together without tons of sugar (or, worse, corn syrup).

There are tons of seemingly great recipes out there, so I felt that it shouldn't be this hard. But when someone who had worked with Alice Waters admitted he struggled with it too, I took heart.

I finally stumbled upon an interesting looking recipe by Rachael Ray. For some reason, people like to dis on her, but as for me, I hail her the Queen of Boozy Pudding.

Aside from the fact that this recipe calls for pretzel sticks (seems a little campy to me), and puffed rice cereal (wasn't meaning to make rice krispie treats here), it's pretty fantastic. I'm not sure I would call this healthy (or, heh, granola) since it starts with melting together butter and brown sugar and ends with pressing in chocolate chips. But, since when is making toffee a bad thing?

I was very happy with how it turned out - crispy, chewy, and it stuck together. (Excuse the lack of parallel structure, but enjoy the parallel structure of these bars...?)

"No-bake" chewy granola bars
Adapted from Rachael Ray

"No-bake" is a slight misnomer here since the recipe relies on previously baked ingredients, like granola. I subbed in raw, instant oats for the rice cereal, but I think any combination of ingredients - some raw, and some crisped - would work well. I even used Honey Bunches of Oats in my second batch. Toasted walnuts would probably be delicious here. 

The best things about this recipe are that it's one-bowl, hard to mess up, and great for using up stuff in your pantry.

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar (I used 1/4 cup the second time)
1/4 cup honey (I used agave)
1 cup granola, or other cereal
1 cup instant oats, raw
1 cup rice cereal
1/2 cup raisins or other dried fruit (optional)
1/2 cup thin pretzel sticks (optional, or sub in extra oats in place)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In a medium saucepan, combine the butter and sugars. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 2 minutes. (This step help it all stick together.) Remove the saucepan from the heat.

Add all the ingredients (except for the chocolate**) into the pan and stir to coat evenly. Transfer the mixture to a chopping board and press the mixture down to the height you'd like. (The original recipe says to use a 9x13, but doing it this way saves on dishes.) Gently press the chocolate chips onto the top of the granola. Let the granola mixture set in the refrigerator until firm, about 15 minutes, then cut into bars. Keeps in the fridge for at least a week.



* It meant nothing than Deb could make beautiful bars - for gosh sakes, she once made her own goldfish crackers.

** The first time I made this, I didn't read the instructions carefully and dumped the chocolate in with everything else. It melted in an unsightly way, but made the whole thing taste like Almond Roca. Really, you can't go wrong.

Aaand, star cheese sandwiches I made for the kiddo today