My friend and I found ourselves craving something sweet, yet fresh and nutritious, at the beach this week. We put together an easy and versatile recipe. The foundation of the recipe was a combination of ingredients we already had available in the cupboard: peanut butter, honey and oatmeal. The additional ingredients can be adjusted to include any mixture of nuts and dried fruit. We included chia seeds for additional fiber. You can also combine quinoa with the recipe; the oatmeal we used already contained a small portion of quinoa.

(Yields 12 bars)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of either old fashioned rolled oats or quick cooking oatmeal
• 1/2 cup nut mix (we used pieces of pecans, walnuts, and almonds)
• 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup dried mix-berry blend
• 2/3 cup creamy peanut butter (use peanut butter that does not need to be refrigerated to allow the bars to completely set)
• 1/3 cup honey (maple syrup can be supplemented to make this recipe vegan)
• Optional 1/4 cup quinoa

Directions:

1. OPTIONAL: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Scatter chia seeds, pieces of pecans, walnuts, shredded almonds, and oatmeal onto an ungreased baking sheet. Include quinoa in this step if you are using it in this recipe. Let these ingredients bake for roughly 8 minutes or until the nuts are slightly golden brown to extract more flavor.
2. While these ingredients are in the oven, turn on the stove top and pour together honey and peanut butter into a small saucepan. Stir these ingredients until until they are completely melted together. Then blend the salt with the mixture.
3. Combine the dry ingredients, peanut butter mixture, and a dried mix-berry blend into a bowl.
4. After stirring together all the ingredients, press the granola mixture firmly into a 8×8 inch glass cake pan. Let the mixture remain in the refrigerator for roughly 2 hours to allow the bars to set.
5. The bars are ready to be cut and enjoyed!