Young and Crunchy!

Aidan got it in his head this week that we HAVE TO make homemade granola bars. I've never made granola bars before and he only really likes the Quaker chocolate chip or Rocky Road ones, so I have no idea why he felt we needed to make our own.

Nonetheless, Doug so thoughtfully printed out a copy of Alton Brown's Granola Bars. I hunted and gathered ingredients at the grocery store and Smith's Market so that we could fulfill his dream of homemade granola bars. I've got a large bag of wheat germ, so I guess I will be exploring additional uses for it before it gets a case of mealy worms.

First, Aidan helped measure and pour the dry ingredients.


Then we toasted our nuts. Oh, and the oats, too. ;)


While the toasting was going on, I melted the sticky ingredients on the stove & Aidan stayed out of the way. He wanted to help pour in the dried fruits, but immediately burnt his finger on the pan and dropped the bag on the stove, so I did that part. I asked him to help pat the mix into the baking pan and you can see he is a bit pouty still over the burnt finger.




Once it was done baking and cooled, I attempted to cut it into bars, but it is so crunchy that it is granola chunks instead of bars. Here is Tyrone on top of Mount Granola.


So far, he hasn't asked to eat one! Doug told him they'd eat one for breakfast tomorrow before school. Next time I hope he gets a hankering for something chocolaty!