Nut Bars

I do the majority of the grocery shopping for our family but on the rare occasion that my husband does happen to find himself in the supermarket - he finds the most unusual things.  😂 I go to the grocery store at least 3 times a week and I probably walk down the dairy aisle every time I go.  I can honestly say that I've never seen the "pancakes in a can" on the shelf just above the butter, until my eagle eye husband pointed them out to me on a grocery date.  (Yes, we go on grocery shopping dates.)  😅 

My forward thinking husband was so fascinated by the concept of squirting a pancake out of a can - there was no way we were leaving the supermarket without purchasing one. 🥞 As luck would have it, we were headed to meet my family that weekend so he decided to test our new squirtable pancakes out on the group.  Spoiler alert - pancakes in a can was a disappointment.  It's a novel idea but they didn't really live up to our expectations.  

To be honest, that wasn't the only time that we've been fooled by genius marketing. 
Anyone else jump on the frozen dinner bandwagon?   They're delicious but holy sodium batman!  😂

I've been fooled by recipes too.  There was a one pan chocolate cake that ended up all over the bottom of my oven because apparently, my 8" pan wasn't big enough.  And an "easy" apple pie that took no less than 3 hours to assemble.  🤣  

I have to admit that when I read this recipe, I had serious hesitation about making a nut bar with only 3 ingredients.  I didn't want to walk into another - too good to be true scenario but, in a moment of rare boldness, I decided to tackle this simple nut bar recipe anyway.   I had no idea if this was going to work but what did I have to lose?  Only 3 ingredients that I already had on hand - nuts, puffed rice and syrup. 🥜
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​This nut bar took under 5 minutes to put together. Sound too good to be true - doesn't it?  Plot twist - it's not.  👏🏻 It's actually super EASY to make and it is DELICIOUS! 

Nut Bars
​1 1/2 cups roasted nuts (I used 1 cup almonds and 1/2 cup peanuts)
½ cup puffed millet cereal
¼ teaspoon salt (optional)
¼ cup pure maple syrup

Combine almonds, peanuts, millet and salt in a large bowl. 

Pour syrup over mixture and stir to combine. 

Pour into a square greased 8" pan and press firmly to tightly pack.

Bake 30-40 minutes at 325.

Let cool 1 hour.  Remove from pan using parchment paper.  Cut into bars. 

I've added honey, agave and brown rice syrup to granola bars but I've never baked them using maple syrup as the binder.  Who knew that maple syrup gets hard when you bake it?  🤷🏻‍♀️ 
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There's a lot of room for interpretation in this recipe.  I chose almonds and peanuts for my bars and since my peanuts were salted, I didn't add any additional salt to the recipe. 

​Ciao!

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