homemade granola (bar) variations

So if you recall, i had posted my SF oat and nut chewy granola bar recipe a while back after the last cooking class.  I've been making a tray of them per week, with different variations.  I've found that the recipe is VERY adaptable to your tastes, and to what you're in the mood for.  Each week's variant has been completely different tasting than the last one, but with fairly stable nutrients, so you can have variety and not get bored.  They're REALLY high in fiber, as an extra bonus.

So here's a few suggestions for what you can add or substitute into the recipe (i haven't done ALL of these simultaneously, and some are planned).  Experiment and have fun:

- added unsweetened cocoa powder and splenda in equal proportions, kept the SF choc chips
- added extra coconut and dried pineapple tidbits, kept the SF choc chips
- added cashew bits and/or pecan bits
- added dried cranberries and/or dried cherries (total of 1/4 cup, chopped), omitted dates/currants
- instead of using cashew butter and peanut butter, i subbed tahini (sesame paste) for half of the cashew butter and added sesame seeds in addition to the flax seeds
- added buckwheat kashi (roasted buckwheat kernels)
- omitted the coconut completely, added flax seeds and sesame seeds and dried cherries

It seems to be key that the bars are about 1 - 1-1/2" thick.  I seem to be using about 2 - 2-1/2 cups of dry ingredients (whatever mixture of nuts and seeds and oats/muesli you like) to about 1-1/2 cups(ish) of the wet ingredients... the mixture should be pretty wet when it goes into the pan, and if you follow the directions and use a spatula to press it down FIRMLY, it works much, much better.

I've been using a 9x13 pan and i'm getting 24 bars per recipe with these proportions.

Here's the link to the original recipe:
http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1114 031

ANd here's the link to the variant I made last night (chocolate!):
recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp

Enjoy!
Karen