Homemade No Bake Granola Bars

Take a look at the following ingredients found in Quaker Chewy Chocolate Granola Bars.

That's quite the list of ingredients in what is suppose to be a healthy snack if you ask me! Most of those ingredients are not even necessary and in my opinion, if you have never heard of an ingredient, not sure what it is, and/or have a hard time pronouncing it, how can it possibly be healthy for you?! I was determined to make my own granola bars for my family with ingredients that I already had in my baking cabinet. I used quick oats, rice krispies, honey, vanilla, peanut butter, butter, brown sugar, and chocolate chips.

These are SUPER easy to make!! Line a baking sheet with wax paper and set aside. In a saucepan over medium heat, add 1 stick of unsalted butter, 1/2 cup honey, 1/2 cup peanut butter, and 2 tsp vanilla until melted. Next, stir in 4 1/2 cups quick cooking oats, and 2 1/2 cups rice krispies. 

Press mixture into lined baking sheet and top with either chocolate chips or peanut chips. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Remove from baking sheet, cut into bars, and store in either an airtight container, or zip lock bag. 

Although they fall apart a little easier than the store bought bars, they are SO delicious! I had a hard time not eating them while taking pictures!! We have been making our own granola bars for about a year now and definitely will not be buying the store bought ones again!

HOMEMADE NO BAKE GRANOLA BARS 

1 stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 1/2 cups rice krispies

4 1/2 cups quick cooking oats

DIRECTIONS: 

• Line a baking sheet with wax paper and set aside. 
• In a saucepan over medium heat, add butter, honey, peanut butter, and vanilla until melted. 
• Stir in quick cooking oats and rice krispies until evenly combined. 
• Press mixture into lined baking sheet and top with either chocolate or peanut butter chips.
• Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. 
• Remove from baking sheet, cut into bars, and store in an airtight container, or zip lock bag.

Have you made granola bars or any other homemade snacks for yourself or family? If so, I would love to hear about it! If not, set aside 5-10 minutes to make these. I PROMISE you will not be disappointed!

An Organized Baking Cabinet

I love to bake! What I don't love is a super messy and unorganized kitchen cabinet full of baking ingredients, preventing me from being able to see exactly what I have. I decided to take the time to empty out two cabinets, one for all of my baking ingredients, one for my baking pans, and also a drawer for baking utensils. 

First, I took note of what I already had and what I needed to purchase. Second, I figured out exactly how many storage containers I would need to store all of my baking ingredients. Third, I looked into some different storage containers and prices and ended up getting some round plastic containers with lids from the Dollartree. Mason jars are another great option for storing these items!

I decanted all of the ingredients into their new containers and then created some labels using the software 'paint' on my computer for editing and adding the different fonts. I just printed them out, cut them, and attached them to containers using clear packing tape, covering the entire label. This project was done last summer and they have held up quite well although I will be updating them soon by laminating them for some extra coverage. 

Here are the containers all filled, labeled, and neatly organized in my 'new' baking cabinet! I love being able to see exactly where everything is and being able to quickly locate and grab what I need! 

Using the empty space on the insides of your cabinet doors is a great use of valuable space, especially if you are limited on the amount of storage space your working with. When you stop to consider the square footage of level, usable space on the interior of your cupboard doors, you can start to envision new possibilities for controlling kitchen clutter. Using cork board, magnetic board, hooks, or clothespins are just a few other options to store recipes, spice containers, hang utensils, store lids, hang dish gloves and store other kitchen items. 

I chose to hang all of my measuring cups and spoons for easy access by simply measuring the door, cutting a strip of wood to size, pre-drilling holes for the mounting screws and cup hooks, and then installing it to the inside of the door. I could have left it as is but I love to label everything and this was no exception! Nothing too fancy....I just printed it out and taped it up. I also typed up a common measuring chart by using a graph in a word document. I refer to this chart quite often, it has been so helpful and definitely a time saver. (Pictures will be added soon of the measuring cups and spoons actually hanging in here!!)

Frequently used items such as the rolling pin, cookie scoop, a few cookie cutters,  spatulas, and beaters to the mixer go in a nearby drawer. 

Below is the cabinet where I store our baking sheets, muffin tins, mini loaf pan, and cake pans using a metal file folder organizer. 

Having everything organized makes it so much easier to find what I need and has also been a big time saver! How do you organize all of your baking supplies?!