Then, the sound of pitter-patter coming toward my door. I open one eye, praying the whole time that 's a rat or maybe a rogue squirrel that's trapped in my house. But I'm not that lucky! No, these pitter-patters are coming from someone who weighs roughly 35 lbs and I know what she's going to say and she's going to say it in the most pathetic voice you've ever heard... "Mommy, I'm hungry!"
I know some of you are thinking "tell her to get some dry cereal", right? Well, I've considered that, but I have children who love and need routine (otherwise their heads spin) and this doesn't make my life simple!! Besides, they love milk in their cereal and have you ever watched a six year old pour a gallon jug of milk? Not pretty!
So I thought, why not make them something they can just grab and eat themselves. Something different and fun, something they would love to get themselves-
Homemade breakfast bars!
So here's my attempt to try to appease the kiddies:
First you mix 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of oats, 2/3 of a cup of brown sugar and 1/4 tsp of baking soda in a bowl. |
take a 1/2 cup of softened butter and cut it into the flour mixture with a pastry knife or the way I did it with your hands! |
mixture should look like this. |
Reserve 1/2-1 cup of flour mixture (this will be the top layer of the breakfast bar.
Press the remaining Flour mixture into an ungreased baking pan (this is an 8x8x 2.5) |
Spread desired amount of fruit preserves into the crumb mixture. |
Sprinkle the reserved 1/2 cup of crumbs on the top. |
Spread it out carefully. |
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until the top becomes nice and brown. |
Allow to cool and cut into squares. These squares can be individually wrapped for easy breakfast or even a lunchbox snack. |
Just so you know, these were kid tested and approved.
But is it cost effective?(assuming I use mostly generic ingredients) Lets break it down:
Flour costs roughly $2.00 for a five pound bag. One cup of this flour is about $0.27
42 oz of old fashioned rolled oats costs around $2.50. One cup of oats will cost you $0.40
A 32 oz bag of brown sugar costs about $1.70. 2/3 of a cup of this will cost about $0.14
Baking soda is very inexpensive, a 16 oz box will cost you $0.70. A 1/4 tsp would cost less than a cent, so why even count it!
16 oz of butter costs about $2.99. A 1/2 cup of this butter would run you about $0.75
Last, a 12 oz jar of blackberry preserves costs $1.99. I used about a cup in my recipe and that would cost $0.67
For a grand total of $2.23 for 16 cereal bars
You can buy 8 Nutri-grain bars for $3.67
I'd say its a deal! It wasn't so hard to make, the kids loved it and it's made of simple ingredients that I can pronounce.
Love it!
I made something similar with apricot- so yummy- almost dessert quality. In my opinion much better (health, cost, and yumminess wise) than nutrigrain!
ReplyDeleteI knew you would approve Laura!! Though I wish I could find a health way to duplicate that soft crust they use to surround their fruit filling. It's probably 45% high fructose corn syrup. Yummy. (insert clever combination of symbols to look like someone barfing)
ReplyDelete