AMISH GRANOLA BARS:
Ditch the store-bought granola and make your own Amish granola bars. Yum!
Gloria included a homemade butterscotch granola recipe in her column this week and it sounds delicious!
Interestingly, I had a couple of other brushes with Amish granola over the past week or so. I gave a jar of homemade granola from The Home Place to my father for his birthday and he loved it. Actually, I think my Mom likes it even more.
But then I also had some homemade granola brought out at a very conservative Old Order Amish home in southeast Indiana. The granola was stored in a large glass jar and really doesn't look like much more than oatmeal. In fact, I can't see any little munchie "mix-ins" such as chips or bits of brown sugar. And what would account for the difference in color? Probably baking time and the lack of any syrups, honeys, etc mixed in. You can contrast that with the homemade granola I recently saw at The Home Place (an Amish-Mennonite bakery in Georgetown, Ohio)
Homemade Granola spotted at The Home Place, an Amish-Mennonite bakery in Brown County, Ohio
Very Plain Granola
The Swartzentruber Amish are known for their self-sufficiency and insular ways and that extends to their food. This is a neat recipe for homemade “granola bars” that comes to us from the Amish settlement near Sinking Springs, Ohio.
Tiring days spent outside in the sun-baked fields far from the house can call for a portable snack. Long before grocery stores starting selling prepackaged, processed granola bars, the Amish were making their own—like these. These bars do have processed products in them (like the graham crackers), but those would be bought at the local bulk food store. When you are done making these they can be stored in a sealed container and enjoyed throughout the week.
- 5 cups quick-cooking oats
- 4½ cups crisped-rice cereal, such as Rice Krispies
- 2 cups chocolate chips
- 1 sleeve graham crackers (8 to 10 crackers), crushed
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter
- ¼ cup peanut butter
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 (10-ounce) packages mini marshmallows
- Lightly grease a 10 by 15-inch pan and set aside.
- Combine the oats, rice cereal, chocolate chips, and graham cracker crumbs in a large bowl until well blended.
- Set aside.
- Melt the butter, peanut butter, oil, honey, and marshmallows in a large saucepan.
- Stir well until the mixture is evenly melted and smooth, then add to the dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined.
- Spread the mixture into the prepared pan, let cool, then cut into bars.
farmhousebarb
This sounds easy enough! I bought some dried cranberries and sunflower seeds on my last trip to the bulk food store,I think I'll make some of these with those items added. My original intent was a batch of granola!! Guess I'd better do both.....