Soft Granola Bars

These were really good! They were healthy for the kids and Chad even liked them too. I will experiment again to see if I can take the sugar down even lower. We tried cranberries, coconut and white chocolate chips. I think next time we'll try coconut, coconut extract and chocolate chips. Hope you enjoy them!

Basic dough:
2 cups quick cooking oats
1 cup all-purpose flour or white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce or vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
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experiment with any combination of the ingredients below:
3/4 cup raisins or cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, almonds or pecans
1/2 cup chocolate chips or white chocolate chips
coconut
1/2 cup peanut butter


DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, stir together dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl blend wet ingredients then pour into the flour mixture, and mix by hand until the liquid is evenly distributed. Press evenly into the prepared baking pan.
3. Bake 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are golden. These are good warm or cool but are much easier to cut when cooled.

No Knead Bread

Eliza Brown gave me this recipe...it is SO EASY, and so yummy! Darrell requests it mulitple times a week! We both believe everyone needs this recipe!

Mix:
3c flour
2t salt
1/4t yeast
1 1/2c warm water

Cover tightly with cling wrap and allow to sit at least 8hrs, up to about 20hrs

Sprinkle some flour on the counterPour dough onto counter and turn over a couple timesAllow to rest 15min to 2hrs (cover loosely with the same piece of cling wrap)

Line bowl with a towel and sprinkle with cornmealPut dough into bowl and sprinkle with a bit more cornmeal, cover with towelRest 1hr-5hrs

About 50min before you want hot bread, place casserole with lid inoven and preheat to 425 for 15minCarefully remove lid from pot and pour in dough, then put lid back onBake at 425 for 30minRemove lid and bake for another 5-10min, until a nice golden brownTip bread out onto a cooling rack(I just put my pot and lid back into the oven to cool so that it doesn't burn anything

Variation:
substitute 3/4c whole wheat for 3/4 c white flour
decrease salt to 1 1/2t if using whole wheat
add a handful of raisins and walnuts