Danielle's Homemade Granola

I've been hoping someone would pick this recipe because I love it! I've made it a number of times, and lately I've been making it weekly in double batches. I love eating it for breakfast and Max likes to take it to work to snack on or eat for lunch.

This granola is so fast and easy to make, and you can totally customize it to your tastes. I've tried it with different kinds of dried fruit (craisins, dried cherries, dried apricots, dried mango), with whole and slivered almonds, and with chopped up chocolate chunks.

My favorite combination so far has been craisins, dried apricots, and slivered almonds. It's delicious with the chocolate chunks, but I've been leaving that out lately because I figure I just don't need that extra bit of fat and sugar in my daily breakfast.

Other than swapping out the fruit and nuts, I haven't made too many changes to the recipe. I've been adding more oats than it calls for because you can get away with less oil, sugar, and honey and it still tastes really good (although it's probably not as clumpy). I've also tried replacing half of the honey with pure maple syrup. I liked it that way, but again, it's less clumpy because the syrup isn't as sticky as honey. The maple flavor was not very noticeable, so I'm not sure if I'll make it that way again.

Melanie W.'s S'more Nut Bars

I made these a couple weeks ago for make-up week, but forgot to post about it. oops. :)

I stuck pretty close to the recipe, but based on past comments I modified it just a bit. The chocolate was 3/4 milk chocolate and only 1/4 dark chocolate. I could have used a little higher quality chocolate to make it taste better but the grocery store I went to only had some cheap stuff. I used the mini marshmallows because I wasn't excited about having to chop up big mashmallows. I think I added a lot more than needed, and also added some on top to make it look yummier. Once it was all put together I threw the whole thing in the oven on broil for just a few minutes in order to get the marshmallows a little melty and roasted looking, like real smores.

I liked these alright, but thought they were too rich and didn't taste like real smores. I think the peanuts messed up the flavor too, but if there weren't any peanuts I think it would be too chocolaty. I made this for my dad's birthday and he didn't give a yay or a nay, so for him that probably meant he didn't like them. I don't think I'll make them again.