Homemaker Mondays: The 12-Year-Old Makes Granola Bars!

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YOURS: Today's "YOURS" post was written by Dusty Bug over at To the Moon and Back. I love reading her blog and getting comments from her because she's just basically a really awesome lady!

Her post was about making your own baby food. And I thought I knew what I was doing when it came to feeding my babies from scratch. Dusty has posted some gourmet recipes for her baby, complete with "after" pictures depicting how much the little guy enjoyed it!


Some of her recipes include:
-Sweet Potato Fries,
-White Potato and Basil Fries, and
-Blueberry Tofu Mush!

Wow! These recipes sound like something I'd like to cook up for myself! If you have a baby or spend time caring for babies in any way, you'll want to check out her post HERE! Thanks so much, Dusty, for the great ideas on how to show more love to our babies!

MINE: The 12-year-old boy's school held an open house on Friday. I knew he'd been struggling with some of his classes which are taught in spanish, so I wasn't completely thrilled with the idea of getting an ear-full from his teachers.

I arranged for a baby sitter for one of the twins and Johnny and took the other twin in a sling along for the ride, walked up the two flights of stairs to the library and waited.

Once Reid's teacher was finished with the parents ahead of us, she greeted us, gave me a folder containing Reid's work and asked me to sit at the table and go over it with him, but before I could sit down, she said...

"Oh, you know, I've been meaning to talk to you about something." Here it comes... "Reid comes to school every morning very, very hungry. And he tells all the kids how hungry he is and they all talk about it and it's affecting his school work."

That was not what I was expecting. After regrouping my mental processes, I explained to her that I have been attempting to use natural consequences to teach Reid a lesson. His problem is that he is expected to get himself up in the morning in time to get dressed, do his morning chores and eat breakfast, but he often gets up too late to accomplish all of the afore mentioned tasks. I've told him that the priorities are getting dressed and chores and if he can't seem to get himself up in time to eat breakfast, then he has to go to school hungry. I know, it's a hard-lined approach, but I somehow thought that perhaps if he went to school hungry for a few days, he would change his ways and get up on time. Apparently, my ploy hasn't worked.

After hearing my explanation, Reid's teacher again reminded me that his hunger problem was affecting his work. I admitted that my technique had not solved the problem and after going over a few options, together we came up with a solution.

In the past I had offered Reid granola bars on his way out the door if he missed breakfast, but he had always refused them because they weren't palatable enough for his taste. My solution was that immediately upon arriving home from meeting with his teacher, we would find a granola bar recipe, whip up some granola bars, individually wrap them in foil, and he would have a meal ready to go in case he, again, couldn't manage to get up on time.

Reid loved this idea, and upon arriving home, went to allrecipes.com, my favorite recipe site, and found a fantastic chocolate chip granola bar recipe. I would love to share this with you today. Here's what you'll need:

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup peanut butter
5 tablespoons corn syrup
1/2 cup applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup toasted oat cereal rings
2/3 cup wheat germ
1/2 teaspoon salt

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 baking pan. Reid likes to get intimate with his food, so here's how he does that...


Step 2: In a large bowl, stir together first 5 ingredients. (By the way, we love THIS kind of peanut butter. No hydrogenated oil! Yay!)


As far as the applesauce, we had none, and because I will avoid going to the store with the twins and Johnny at all costs, I found some of this...


...put it in my blender for a few seconds, and made this as a substitute...


Lest you wonder if this worked, stay tuned and you shall find out.

Step 3: In a separate bowl, stir together last six ingredients.



Step 4: Stir together the dry ingredients with the peanutbutter mixture until evenly coated.

Step 5: Taste the dough to make sure it is acceptable...


Step 6: If you are half-heartedly supervising your child while he's making this and decide that you would like to freeze some blackberries in the meantime, do not, under any circumstances, drop any blackberries onto the kitchen floor, not even ONE, or THIS will result...


(I swear, this was just one blackberry.)

Step 7: Press the mixture into the greased baking pan.


Step 8: Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until slightly golden.

Step 9: Remove from oven and score with a knife while still hot to make for easier cutting once cool.


Step 10: Cut to desired size and wrap in individual aluminum foil sheets for easy-to-grab breakfast treats!


Step 11: Clean up your mess, so you're left with THIS...


(Okay, I admit it. I just wanted an excuse to post a picture of my island!)

Step 12: Hide the granola bars from your 16-year-old son, or come Monday morning, this is all you'll have left...


So, yes, they turned out MORE than acceptable for the young chef's taste and we will be making some more after school today; a quadruple batch!

OURS: All righty then, let's see what's going on in your homemaking world today! Just enter your screen name, URL of your post (not your homepage URL), and leave a comment, then check out what everyone else has to say. And don't forget to leave them a comment, too! Thank you for coming today and I hope you all have a Happy Homemaker Monday!



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