Day 25: Granola Bars {National Poetry Month & 30 Day Blog Challenge}

The original recipe is from Against the Grain* cookbook by Nancy Cain. I've modified it {of course}.

Ingredients:
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup Trim Healthy Mama Baking Blend
1/4 cup snipped Viva Labs organic goji berries*
1 snack box of snipped raisins
1/4 cup Viva Labs organic raw cacao nibs*
1 cup shredded coconut
1 TBS unflavored NOW Foods gelatin* (optional)
1 TBS cinnamon
1/3 cup Trim Healthy Mama erythritol
1/2 cup honey
2-3 TBS unsulphured molasses
1 tsp vanilla
4 TBS butter (or coconut oil- that's what I was going to use)

Directions: (remember, I modified this)
Preheat oven to 300*F.

Grease 9x13 pan. Line with parchment paper if you have that.

Mix all dry ingredients, except erythritol, in a medium bowl. That's the first 7 ingredients. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, combine the rest of the ingredients and heat. Bring to a rolling boil, for about 2 minutes.

Pour the sugar mix over dry mix. Stir until well combined.

Spoon into pan and flatten uniformly.

Bake for about 25 minutes. When done let cool in the pan completely. If you were lucky to have parchment paper you can remove that to let them cool on a rack. Otherwise, wait to cut into bars until it's completely cooled.

Of course, I don't follow directions- probably why I'm always tweaking recipes- and I went ahead and cut these before completely cool with no problems.

They taste yummy!

*Disclaimer: I was given the Viva Labs organic raw cacao nibs and organic goji berries for free for the purpose of reviewing on Amazon. This post is just to show one way I used them. *Links are Amazon affiliate links. See Disclosure/Policies.*

A quick poem because I just can't not have one: Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;

But the eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.

    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.