Cereal bars

Everyone knows about rice krispie treats, right?

a bag of marshmallows, a stick of butter, 5-6 cups rice krispies,

yum!

and you can build stuff with them, like on top of cakes, and then frost it.

That tower or dinosaur that you admire, it just might be snap, crackle and pop hiding under there.

Another cereal treat we love,

and probably most know about, are the peanut butter corn flake Pralines.

sugar, corn syrup, peanut butter and corn flakes.

same idea as the rice krispies but peanut buttery.

I saw a post a few weeks back by Ann over at Sumptuous Spoonfuls for Special K Bars

And I love Special K, that's my cereal, when I have it.

The kids aren't allowed to touch MY box of cereal.

So I had to check it out.

Basically the same recipe I use,

but wait

there's more

she has chocolate and butterscotch chips on hers.



Now why didn't I think of that?

So I call the girls into the kitchen,

We have to make this now!

We use our recipe (it has more sugar)

and as we're melting the sugar and corn syrup, I see out of the corner of my eye...

The dry roasted peanuts.

hmmm.

That would give a touch of salt and extra crunch.

Then the girls start chiming in with other things we could add...

                          Chocolate chips
                          Raisins
                          Broken pretzels
                          M & Ms
                          2 different types of cereal (captain crunch was mentioned)

And I realized...

Throw anything in you feel like.

So here's what we did...

Cereal bars

1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup peanut butter

a total of seven cups of stuff-we used
     6 cups cereal-Special K this time
     1 cup dry roasted peanuts

1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips
1/4 cup butter

use any cereal you like-I do recommend the flake or lighter varieties
we also had some grape nuts in the house but don't think those would work as the main ingredient

Place cereal in a large mixing bowl.

On stove, bring sugar and corn syrup to a boil and remove from heat.

Add peanut butter.

 Stir until blended then pour over cereal.

 Gently fold to coat.

 Add other "stuff"

 and fold a few more times.

Spread in a buttered 13 x 9 pan,

 let cool.

Again, I'm a double boiler girl,

 melt chips with the butter

 until melted and smooth.

Spread over cereal bars.

If you want to add sprinkles or anything decorative, do it now,

 you may need to gently press them into the chocolate using waxed paper.

Leave alone for a few hours to cool and set completely.

Now lets just take a quick second to review the nutritional value of these bars,

Made with cereal-usually has at least 8 vitamins and minerals

Peanut butter has protein

Nuts-more protein

I think I can get away with calling these a "healthy" snack!

Probably not, but I tried!

Special thanks to Mrs. Phyllis at church for turning us on to the Corn Flake Pralines years ago and to Ann at Sumptuous Spoonfuls for making us think "outside of the box."

What would you put in yours?