Cooks Joy

Day 1 of the blogging marathon and my theme for this week is “Guilt free snacks”. After all the deep frying and buttery desserts, I certainly needed these guilt free snacks on the menu. Granola is something which has been on my to-do list for a long time. I have seen recipes which are just mixes and some which are bars. This particular recipe caught my attention because it was plain simple with no added sweet and looked very healthy and guilt free. It is also very easy to make.

I modified it slightly based on the dry fruits I had on hand. I have also added honey and some chocolate chips and found the sweetness to be right. These bars are chewy and can be refrigerated for few days. K had been taking a couple of these to work this past week. He microwaves them for few seconds as suggested in the original recipe. Feel free to use any combination of nuts and any combination of dry fruits. Off to the pictorial. Recipe adapted from Katheats.

Ingredients
1.5 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dried fruit (I used a mix of blueberries, cranberries and raisins)
1 tbsp sesame seeds (1/4 cup seeds)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup chocolate chips (optional)
1.25 cups fat free milk
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp honey (optional)

Method
Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine dry ingredients together. Take oats in a bowl.

Add walnuts.

Add dry fruits.

Add sesame seeds.

Add cinnamon and salt.

Add chocolate chips.

Mix well and keep aside.

Get the wet ingredients together next. Mix milk and egg whites.

Add vanilla.

Add honey.

Whisk it together.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.

Pour mixture in a parchment paper lined 9 x 9 baking pan. After one bad episode of things sticking to the parchment paper, I now spray the parchment paper also.