Crunchy Granola Bars

I must say I love Ina Garten, of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and Food Network TV show. She brings such casual ease to cooking and always uses simple and fresh ingredients.  I can across her recipe for granola bars and decided to tweak it a bit after reading reviews and adding my own touches.
Never feel that you have to stick to a granola bar recipe and add all the ingredients listed, you can add anything you like.  Go ahead and add chocolate chips, dried cranberries, pecans, whatever you have in your cupboards can be tossed in.  They can be as plain as you like or chock full.....

I had some gogi berries and cocoa nibs that I bought recently after hearing about their antioxidant powers and other health benefits. I had only eaten them raw and thought to try baking with them, so in they went!  Gogi berries are small dried berries grown in China, Tibet and the Himalayas.  They have such an amazing red colour and a chewy texture, unfortunately the colour was lost in the baking.  The flavour reminds me of red grapefruits, tart and citrus-y.  Next time I will add more berries!

The cocoa nibs were a really nice addition!  Cocoa nibs are raw cocoa beans, the ingredient chocolate is made from.  You could grind your own to make cocoa powder, something I have yet to try.   I've eaten them mixed in ice cream for the crunchy texture, but they are rather bitter.   They almost have a smokey, coffee taste that I thought would cut the sweetness of the granola bar...it worked.  They are much like a hard nut with a smooth taste.  You can buy them as I did, the whole cocoa bean, or they come already crushed as nibs.  I'd say go for the nibs, it took me a while to crack them and remove the nibs from the husk.  Sometimes you can just twist them with your fingers and they will crush but most of the time I pressed a spoon down on them first to crack them, labour intensive.

After making this first batch, I would add dried cranberries and more raisins next time for that extra chewiness.  Enjoy and have fun creating your very own!

Crunchy Granola Bars

Pre-heat oven to 350F

Toast in oven for 10 minutes:
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup wheat germ

Reduce oven to 300F

In large bowl add toasted mixture with:
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup cocoa nibs
1/4 cup gogi berries
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
(These ingredients are all optional, add other dried fruits, nuts, or seeds that you like)

In a small saucepan over low heat melt:

1/4 cup peanut butter, any kind
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 tbsp corn syrup

Add off the heat:
3 tbsp olive oil (or melted butter)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine warm mixture with ingredients in large bowl and toss to coat.  Grease, line with a Silpat or parchment paper a 17"x11.5" jelly pan or rimmed cookie sheet.  With wet hands, press mixture evenly in cookie sheet.  Bake for 25 minutes or until slightly golden.

Cut bars while slightly warm in the pan.  If they firm up just place back in the oven for 2 minutes and then cut.  Cool completely.  Makes approximately 21 bars.