Healthy and Easy Granola Bar Recipe

 The current political climate is really stressing me out. Two things that help me with stress relief are working out and baking. The thought of a Donald Trump presidency has recently given me visible arm muscles, increased my running speed, and has brought you this granola bar recipe.

Some mornings it feels really impossible to get all of the kids ready, out the door, and arrive at Pearl's pre-school on time. Granola bars are perfect for a quick on-the-go breakfast to help speed up the morning process. I have had a difficult time finding store bought ones though that are both healthy and don't cost a fortune. I set out one week to find a recipe that would fit this criteria to make our mornings less stressful. I couldn't find a single recipe that involved an amount of sugar that I was comfortable with so I decided to make my own. The first batch turned out decently, but with a few more rounds and modifications under my belt, I have finally come up with a healthy recipe that my kids like. It's also super easy!

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup sliced almonds (or other nuts)

1/2 cup flaxseed meal

1 ripe banana (mashed)

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (optional)

1/4 tsp fine sea salt

Directions:

Put rolled oats, almonds, and flaxseed meal in a large bowl and set aside. Line an 8x8 square baking dish with parchment paper and set aside.

Bring mashed banana and honey to a boil in a sauce pan over med-high heat. Let it boil for just one minute. Quickly remove from the heat, add peanut butter and vanilla, then stir until combined.

Pour the contents of the sauce pan into the large bowl of oats and other ingredients. Mix until well combined. Add your chocolate chips if using and mix them in as well. Pour this mixture into the lined 8x8 dish. Press it all down firmly and evenly into your dish. Sprinkle the sea salt over the top and press down once more. Put the dish in the freezer for a couple of hours, then cut to your preferred size and enjoy!

This granola bar recipe is gluten free and can be easily modified to work for our vegan friends. You just need to substitute maple syrup for the honey. If you don't have sliced almonds or other nuts, just increase your oats to 4 cups and they will still turn out great. I have used both natural organic peanut butter as well as Skippy and both worked just fine. I'm sure most nut butters would work here if you need to replace peanut butter for something else. I store mine in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Here's to stress free mornings and stress reducing hobbies as well :)

-Kira

Cooking at Home - Stepping my Game Up

I have been trying to improve the dinner situation around here.  We eat out way more than we should and about half of our weekly meals come courtesy of the pre-packaged frozen meals section at Trader Joe's.  It's hard to find the time to make dinner and I have never loved cooking so it's difficult to find the motivation some nights too.  My kids deserve better though so I have been making an effort.

As a part of the tiny goals I set for this year, I am grocery shopping with a list now.  Last week I looked up a few crock pot meals to try and wrote down all of the ingredients before heading to the store.  It turns out shopping with a list takes a lot longer because sometimes I can't find the items I need.  It makes things so much easier once I'm home though.  I actually had food to complete full meals this week.

These are the crock pot meals I made:

1. Meatless Black Bean, Quinoa, and Vegetable Chili

It was a little bland, but adding in avocados, sour cream, and cheese helped a ton.  Since we are not vegetarians, I think I will try this again with ground turkey.

2. Honey Sesame Chicken

We liked this one and I plan to make it again.

3. Apple Cinnamon Steel-Cut Oatmeal

This was pretty good, healthy, and really cheap to make.  It tasted delicious on day two when I heated it up with milk and brown sugar instead of going the healthy sweetener route.

4. Black Bean Brownies

This is not a crock pot recipe, but I over-purchased black beans for the chili and tried this out for fun.  The brownies were way better than they sound, I swear.  I didn't even taste the beans.  They are also vegan and gluten free!

Now friends, please help me out.  What are some of your favorite healthy (or healthy-ish) crock pot or simple recipes?  I trust you all so much more than Pinterest.

-Kira

Tiny Goals

I don't really do new year's resolutions.  I'm not going to stick to something huge no matter how good it may be for me.  I've tried it in the past and always end up feeling like a failure.  There are a lot of things I wish I was doing better when it comes to food though.  I decided to go with easily obtainable goals.  Baby steps work best for me. Once I experience success with these goals, I will hopefully continue to make more small ones which will eventually lead to big, healthy changes in the way our family eats.

Here are my goals:

1. Serve at least one vegetable at every dinner.  Seems like a no-brainer, but with a husband and daughter who don't really love vegetables, we end up skipping the veggies more than we should. 

2. Limit microwave use.  I rely on the microwave too often mostly because I don't plan ahead.  All of the healthy things I cook in the microwave can also be cooked in the oven or on the stove.  I'm hoping the processed foods will fall by the wayside when I don't have the microwave to cook them.  I've decided to allow myself only one microwave use per day.

3. Always bring a list to the grocery store.  I often just rush out the door once kids are fed, dressed, and diapered to get to the store before I lose my window.  This results in me forgetting ingredients for meals I planned or even forgetting basic things we need like eggs or milk.  I'm hoping this will help me think about the things I put in our cart that are not on the list as well.

Did you make any big resolutions or tiny goals this year?

-Kira