Homemade Healthy Holiday Gifts

Joan Obra, writer for the Fresno Bee newspaper, shared our Peanut Butter Granola recipe with readers today. We thought we would repost this recipe for all of you as well. We've made it a new tradition to package granola to share with friends and family at holiday time instead of our usual cookies.

Don't get us wrong, we still love cookies and candy but they seem to come in such abundance at this time of year that we thought it would be fun to put a healthy twist on food gifts. The great thing about granola is it can be used as a gift anytime of year. We even packaged it up as granola bars with a "nursing mama" gift for a friend who just had a baby. Oats are supposed to help with milk production.

Meilani, our 2-year-old, loves to help Mama make the 'nola. She gets her hands in the oats, nuts and seeds mix and does her special job of making sure everything is incorporated. When we give the granola away to friends, we encourage them to eat it as a snack or even a cereal with yogurt or milk.

PEANUT BUTTER-COCONUT GRANOLA
OR GRANOLA BARS

Ingredients:
-olive oil spray
-3 cups oats
-1 cup raw peanut butter
-1 cup honey + 1/4 cup honey
-1 tablespoon vanilla
-1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
-1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
-1/2 cup chopped almonds
-1/4 cup flaxseed
-1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries
-1/2 cup shredded coconut

1. Spray rectangle cake pan with olive oil spray. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a small saucepan over low heat, combine peanut butter, 1 cup honey and vanilla. Allow to warm until you can mix the 3 together to form a runny paste.

3. In a large bowl, mix oats, seeds, almonds and flaxseed.

4. Pour peanut butter mixture over oat mixture and mix until clumps of granola form. Mix in raisins.

5. Then pour mixture into cake pan and spread out evenly.

6. Drizzle with remaining 1/4 honey.

7. Sprinkle with coconut.

8. At this point if you just want to make granola cereal or snack, stick it in the oven. If you want bars, then use a large metal spoon to pat granola down lightly.

8. Bake approx. 15 minutes or until golden brown on top.

9. Remove from oven and pat down again to flatten if you want to cut it into bars. Otherwise, cool.

10. Allow to fully cool and then cut into bars. Wrap individually in plastic wrap or just serve out of the pan for a snack anytime. These are also great crumbled with yogurt for breakfast.

**NOTES: These are inexpensive to make especially if you buy your oats and honey in bulk at places like Costco and Winco. We especially like Winco's fresh-pressed raw peanut butter. They have a machine that presses it straight from the peanuts while you wait with no additives. Also, they have local raw honey. Winco sells seeds, raisins and unsweetened coconut in the bulk section. Try to avoid prepackaged seeds or peanut butter with added sugar, salt, etc.