Getting healthy with homemade granola bars

We are still trying to get to grips with the busier, or rather shorter, weekday mornings (and by we, I don't mean me).  In an attempt to help The Team eat as well as they can in the short time available, I have been researching nutritious and delicious breakfast options, that aren't too time-consuming for me.  And when I came across the Lisa of 100 Days of Real Food, I was pleased. Although the premise is wonderful, I didn't feel like it was something I could easily slot into our lives.  But this granola recipe?  For sure.

As it happens, we pretty much always have all those ingredients in the house at any given time, so it was really easy to get started.

A large bowl full of oats, coconut, seeds, raw cashews, raw brazil nuts, pine nuts, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg - mmm...

Here we can see the seeds were a mix of pumpkin and sunflower, and somewhere in there are the pine nuts, because I didn't have enough cashews and walnuts as per the recipe.

 The melted butter and honey soaked in really quickly, so I had to get mixing fast!

There was so much mixture (the Americans seem to like making huge amounts of desserts at once) that I had to use my usual brownie tray (approx 20 x 30cm) plus an additional 20cm square tin. Although to be fair, the square tray had a thinner layer of mixture than the rectangular one.

And for future bakings, I would lower the recommended temperature and the time involved, as this seems a little dry and overdone to us.  The honey seems to have made it an extra specially golden colour.

However, despite the slight dryness to taste, it's deliciously cripsy, smells wonderfully of honey and tastes great with all the different seeds and nuts in each mouthful!  And it's lasting well in an airtight container, just perfect for afternoon tea or a quick bite in the mornings.