Addictive Homemade Peanut Butter Granola Bars

Ingredients:

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 3 tbsp butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Prepare an 8 by 8 square baking pan lined with aluminum foil and spray with vegetable oil spray.
3. Combine peanut butter, honey, brown sugar and butter in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds until softened. 
4. Add salt and vanilla, stir until well blended.
5. In a large mixing bowl, add the oats and combine in the peanut butter mixture. Stir until all oats are well coated with the mixture.
6. Place contents into pan and compress down into pan.
7. Bake for 25 minutes
8. Allow to cool fully for about 30 minutes. Cut into bars.
9. Makes about 16 - 18 bars

New Year's Resolutions - NOT!

I stopped making New Year's resolutions many years ago.

They just added too much stress in my life and always seemed to not work out well. Plus my birthday is on New Year's Day, so any resolution for dieting, exercising more and cutting back on alcohol consumption was immediately kicked to the curb by 12:01 on day one of the year.

Instead of resolutions, I make a list of what I want to accomplish or do in the new year - a bucket list in 12 month increments if you will.

Here are big ones:

1. Eat more vegetarian meals. This is not because I do not like meat, quite the contrary, I love it - especially bacon, but I digress. As I have gotten older, certain meats and other greasy foods do not digest as well with me as they did when I was younger and my cholesterol level could certainly use a good dose of lowering. So, more veggies are a big one for me this year. Notice, I did not say diet? Diet is a 4-letter word.

2. Downsize my home and lifestyle. When you have so much stuff that it becomes a burden to care for those things, casting off the unnecessary things has to happen sooner or later. I am not a pack-rat by nature, in fact I pride myself on being a frugal minimalist, but having a large acreage is getting to be too labor-intensive for just my husband and me to take care of. So, we are planning to sell our 15-acre farm this year.

3. Live on a smaller piece of property. We have already purchased a smaller piece of property and are currently having a barn built on it.

 

4. Travel across the U.S. and Canada. This one will be a bit difficult during the transition to the new property this year, but fingers crossed that the hubs and I can get some time away from the land.

What is your 12-month bucket list for 2016?