Gluten Free Granola Goodness

When you have a child or family member diagnosed with celiac disease, or any food intolerance or allergy for that matter, it changes everything you thought you knew about food.

It makes some foods necessary, and others become like invaders, or "germs" as my friend Julie refers to crumbs. And in a way, crumbs are like a germ, at least for Kate's little body.

No more brushing that extra amount of flour that spilled onto the counter into your bowl. No more picking food up off the table and eating it without a care. No more pot-lucks at your house, or at any house for that matter. You have to be conscious of every surface your food touches, every hand that comes into contact with your food, even the source of the food becomes a topic of conversation, and something you worry about at night.

I bet you don't think about what the guy on the tortilla manufacturing line had for lunch, huh?

But I am really lucky, because Kate is little and impressionable, and I get the opportunity to start her on this journey from such a young age. It is part of table etiquette, we don't touch the table and then touch our food, we don't eat food that has fallen off of our plate, we don't eat food from other people's plates. It's part of shopping, we read all of the ingredient labels and check to make sure that the company uses good manufacturing practices to prevent cross contamination. If we don't know what's in it, we don't eat it.

All of these rules and boundaries that we are setting for her now are to help train her to be a successful gluten free consumer and a healthy, happy person.

I have been looking for a quick, after school, nutritious, portable gluten free snack that Kate and Brooke will eat, and that Tommy and I would like to eat, too. Granola bars are very kid friendly and Tommy and I love them, too. But store-bought granola bars are about $5-6 for a box of 5 bars, no thank you!

I stumbled upon glutenfreeeasily.com, a great source of a bunch of different gluten free websites. This recipe caught my eye:

http://blog.attunefoods.com/2011/09/chewy-whole-grain-chocolate-chip-granola-bars/

The first batch I made subbed 1 cup of Kellogg's GF Rice Krispies and 1 cup Bob's Red Mill GF Old-fashioned Oats for the wheat cereal, and I used pecans instead of coconut. The taste was great but the bars didn't set up and I wound up with delicious chocolate chip granola cereal. A pleasant failure, if you will.

The second batch I made, I increased the amount of honey and let the pan cool all day to ensure that it was as firm as it was going to get. I also used Nature's Path Rice cereal, which is harder to find, but no BHT (preservative) and it had a better texture for the bar. In addition, I used the GF Quick Oats that I had left, which made the bar a little easier to chew. They turned out perfectly, if a little sweeter than I would have liked because of the extra honey.

Lindsay's GF Granola Bars

1 cup Nature's Path Crisped Rice Cereal
1 cup Bob's Red Mill GF Quick Oats
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tbsp flax meal
1/8 tsp salt
1/8-1/4 tsp cinnamon (I just sprinkled a little into the bowl, I didn't measure it)
1/2 cup honey + 1 tbsp

Preheat oven to 350. Line an 8x8 inch pan with foil and then heavily spray foil with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except for honey. Mix well, then pour 1/2 cup of honey over the top. Mix well until all ingredients are moist. If needed, add remaining honey.

Scrape mixture into your prepared pan, with wet hands, press firmly and evenly into the pan.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the edges start to brown.

Remove from oven and let cool COMPLETELY in the pan. When cool, remove by lifting out the foil lining, and cut into bars. Depending on size, you will make 10-12 bars.

The combination of the pecan, cinnamon and cranberries is very fall-ish to me, perfect for a mid-morning or afternoon snack. The pecans take on a roasted flavor that I absolutely love. I think next time I will use the chocolate chips and regular raisins again and see if Kate likes them, I think she was a little weirded out by the golden raisins.

Oh well, more for me!