Wendy’s Granola Bites

You'll need 3 cups Quick Oats, 1-1/2 cups Rice Krispies, 1-1/2 cup Flax Seeds, 1 cup Honey or Agave Syrup, 3 tsp Vanilla Extract, 1-1/2 cups Peanut Butter, and 1 cup Chocolate.

You'll need a large mixing bowl. And for sizing reference, here it is on my average-sized head.

Step 1: You can mix everything together at once, but I like to start with the dry ingredients. Must be all that cookie baking I did in my twenties. Stir up the oats, flax and cereal.

Step 2: Add peanut butter, agave (or honey if you're using it instead) and vanilla extract. If you want to be fancy, you can make a well in the center for the wet stuff. Totally unnecessary. Just makes for a nice photo, don't you think? :D

Step 3: Stop your child from stealing the bowl before the bites are done. Z is REALLY excited when mommy makes these.

Step 4: add the chocolate. You can use mini chocolate chips, chopped up regular size chips, or do what I do: find whatever chocolate you need to get rid of (ie leftover candy from a birthday party). Of course, if you want to be REALLY healthy, dark chocolate is the way to go. (or just, you know, forget the bites and drink some water).

Step 5: Mix chocolate into the mixture until it looks like a perfect little round ball of yummyness. If, while stirring, the mixture seems a little dry, you can drizzle a bit more agave/honey until it sticks together. DON'T put too much in at one time or you risk the mixture being too wet.

Step 6: Use a melon baller (or if you don't have one, your hands work) to form balls about 1" in diameter. This size is TOTALLY up to you, but you will be hating life when you're an hour into making your tiny bites....cause that's gonna take a while. I've found 1" is a good size for time and portability. :) Place bites onto cookie sheet (you can line it with parchment, but I didn't have any and the bites were still delish) and put in fridge for 1-2 hours (you can even go overnight if you forget them, like I tend to do).

Viola! Tasty little granola bites. Yield is these 70 bites, plus the 5 that Z grabbed when she thought I wasn't looking. Kids LOVE these things. You can store these bad boys in the fridge for a week or the freezer for up to three months (I just use a freezer bag). Note: this has never been confirmed because they NEVER last that long. They don't even last a month. If you want to double or even triple the recipe, you'll still not make the three months, in my opinion. Yes, they're just that good. I keep a small bag for the week in the fridge, and replenish from the freezer every weekend. Easy peesy, granola squeezy.