PB Granola Bars

Moth used to make a granola bar that for us as kids, that we'd take hiking and on trips and to school and out to play and anywhere. They required no baking and lots of peanut butter and dried fruit. I couldn't find her recipe anywhere....

Here's one I found online.

Stir together:

1 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. corn syrup

1/3 c. butter

2 tsp vanilla

Add [really anything]:

3 1/3 c. oats

1 c. of dried fruit (we had pineapple, papaya, kiwi, canteloupe, strawberries, craisins and raisins)

1/2 c. chopped almonds

1/2 c. chocolate chips

This was freaking sticky and hard to deal with. Bake for 20ish minutes in a greased 13 x 9 inch pan, at 350 degrees. When they were done (and Bee and I were done snacking) I cut them up and wrapped them individually in seran wrap for easy packing...all I could think about was motorhome trips out West; Bratty Becky and the giggling and running about and coke-bottle rockets, group poem-writing and contests to see who could be quietest, and tests-of-true-sistership.

Never Too Many Cookies.

Simon and I spend a pathetically high percentage of our time at Jeremy / Sean / Jesse's house. Yesterday Jesse complained that all of our cookies and cake were gone (mostly because of him), and that he was out of snacks. So when I got back from class at 10 freaking PM, we made two batches of cookies:

1. Cinnamon-Sugar

1 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. white sugar

1 c. butter, softened

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 c. flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1. Blend sugar and butter; blend in eggs and vanilla.

2. Mix in the rest, form into balls, and roll in:

some sugar

some cinnamon

The recipe required baking at 300 degrees for 20 minutes, but I followed the same procedure as the next batch, which was:

2. Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 c. peanut butter

1/4 c. butter, softened

1/4 c. white sugar

1/4 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 egg (ha!)

1 1/2 tbsp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla

~1 c. flour

sprinkle of baking powder

sprinkle of salt

Cookie recipes always require such tedious mixing order, but specific instructions aren't really my thang, so I just mixed up the sugars and butter, then added egg + milk + vanilla, and finally all the dry ingredients. I'm convinced you'd get the same end result if you poured it all in a bowl simultaneously and shook it up (a hypothesis that has yet to be tested).

So! Bean mixed up the cinnamon cookies; I did the peanut butter, and they all came together for a sugar-filled serenade. The crowd seemed to approve.