perfection

Or nearly there.

We used to always snack on granola bars, cereal bars, muffin bars, etc. We called them all "breakfast bars" to simplify things for Nate. There are such things here, but they are all imports and super expensive. So I started thinking that surely I could make some. Our oven scares me, so I scoured the internet for no-bake options. I settled on Rachael Ray's (no linky right now because her website is down, but it's easy to find).

I had some trouble with it, though. It's ok. I'm not afraid of experimenting with a recipe. I don't know if it's because of the humidity here or what, but I couldn't get the bars to stick together. We had granola clumps for a few batches. But, I think I have arrived at the best way to make them.

Melt 1/4 cup margarine, 1/4 cup honey, 1/2 cup brown sugar over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. I experimented with the amount of sugar and honey and with adding peanut butter, but the stickiness wasn't right.
Add 1 1/2 cups quick cooking oatmeal, 3/4 cup rice crispy cereal, 1/2 cup pretzel sticks, 1/2 cup raisins. Mix until thoroughly coated in the syrupy mixture. RR calls for 2 cups granola and 1 cup rice crispies. Mine stick better with oats instead of granola and with less cereal total.
Press into jelly roll pan. Mine's small, and this doesn't quite fill it up. I just squish it into about 3/4 of the pan and make a line with a knife on the "open" edge.
Top with 1/2 cup chocolate chips or 1 crushed dark chocolate bar if you live somewhere that doesn't really have chocolate chips like me.
Chill until set. I work on these during naptime, and right about this point, Ben is waking up, so I come back to it the following day to cut them into bars. I store them in the fridge because of ants.

We left our previous batch of breakfast bars, which was nearly but not quite as good as this one, in Malindi in the fridge at our hotel. I reminded Rodgers yesterday that I'd made more, and they were already cut and ready to eat, then I went to put Nate down for nap. I came back and Rodgers said, "Those are gooooood. I had four."

The only thing I think could possibly make them even better would be a bit of peanut butter. Maybe melted and drizzled over the top of the chocolate?