I am busy packing, cleaning and getting the last few things ready for our move tomorrow. The past few days have been exhausting but I know it will all be worth it when we finally get there and starting settling in. In the mean time, I didn’t want to leave you hanging so I have an awesome guest post for you today.

In honor of traveling and food on the go which has been a constant over the past few days, Kimberley is stopping by to share a healthy and easy on the go snack!

Recently the family and I took a road trip. A nice 8.5 hour drive with two kiddos.  This road trip went so much differently than all my road trips in college.  I did manage to plan car activities for the girls which really helped the time pass by.  Instead of hearing ‘are we there yet?‘ every 30 minutes, we heard it every hour which isn’t so bad.

Trying to cut down any unnecessary stops and not wanting to feel disgusting to whole way there, I planned out all of our car meals- breakfast, lunch and snacks.  One of the best snacks I made for my husband and I were these granola bites.  There is minimal sugar, lots of nuts and oats and no butter unlike a lot of store bought granola bars.  Not only was the granola tasty but it traveled really well in a plastic container.  After the bites were gone, the extra granola was perfect for yogurt or cereal.

Ingredients:

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1/2 cup almond flour (1/2 cup almonds = a little more than 1/2 cup of flour)

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup slivered almonds

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300F.

2.  Line 9×13 baking pan with parchment paper.

3. If you don’t have almond flour- make it now following the steps below:

Pour 1/2 cup almonds into a food processor and pulse a few times until the nuts are finely ground.  Be careful not to grind them for too long or the mixture will get pasty. Once the nuts are ground, pass them through a fine mesh colander.  Any larger pieces can be reground. 

4. In large bowl, toss together oats, almond flour, whole wheat flour, slivered almonds and salt.

5. Pour canola oil evenly over the mixture, stir and set aside.

6. Combine maple syrup and brown sugar in a medium pan over medium heat.

7. Stir until sugar dissolves.

8. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract.

9. Pour the sugar/maple mixture over oat mixture and stir until everything begins to come together.

10. Break up any lumps and make sure the wet ingredients are evenly coating the dry.

11. Press the sticky granola into the prepared baking pan flattening the top with your hand or the bottom of a spoon.

12. Bake for 40 minutes, rotating the pan every 10 minutes.

Make sure you keep checking the granola to ensure it hasn’t burned.

13. Remove the pan from the heat and let sit for a couple minutes before breaking the granola into chunks.

14. Put the clusters back onto the baking pan and bake for an additional 10 minutes at 300F.

15. Let the clusters completely cool uncovered on the counter before packaging or eating them.

Thanks so much to Kimberly for sharing this awesome recipe! I am looking forward to trying it myself when I get settled. I will be checking back as I can over the next several days. Thanks for your patience during this crazy time!

Have you ever made your own granola?

What’s your favorite flavor of granola?

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