Friday, March 18, 2011

Trail Bars

Sense of Home

When I was growing up my family would go camping every summer with a couple of other families.  After a campfire breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes us kids would spend nearly all day hiking through the woods.  We were called back to the campsite with a series of honks of a car horn and we would arrive at camp ready to eat a camp dinner we played no part in preparing.  We never gave any of our camping meals a thought, it was always there ready to eat and then we would be off into the woods again until it was time to sit around the evening campfire.  Our mothers prepared the food and cleaned up afterward and we loved camping, all that time to explore the woods.  We even loved camping in the rain, in fact, to this day, when it rains, the fresh rain smell always reminds me of camping and makes me a little wistful for those days.    

Trail Bars
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
2 cups regular oats
1 cup whole grain puffed rice cereal
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/4 cup roasted peanuts or sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter an 8 x 8 pan.

Combine oats, rice cereal, coconut and peanuts or sunflower seeds in a medium-sized bowl.  Combine butter, honey, vanilla, salt and peanut butter in a saucepan and heat, stirring to blend.  Pour honey mixture over the dry ingredients, mixing until thoroughly coated.  Pack into a prepared 8 x 8 pan and bake for 15 - 20 minutes.  Cool and cut.

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