My New Quest

We are on the verge of what I would call being homesteaders. On the edge and dipping our feet into the way of life of people a few generations ago. As you know we have added goats. There is talk of chickens right now. It is only in the talking phase. But there could be a chicken coop in our close future. But there is more to being a homesteader than just animals. It is kind of a mindset that says, "I don't have to depend on someone else to make something or do something for me. I can do it myself."

Did you know that there are so many things that you can make? We started off by making our own yogurt. I make it in the crockpot. Lately it has failed, but that hasn't deterred me. My next time, I am going to use the heating pad to make it.

I am making my own granola which also leads to our own granola bars.

We have a son who fell in love with Chewy granola bars that are chocolate with mint. When Chewy decided to make them in boxes of eight instead of 10. I had to find a better way. They were getting too expensive. So I started experimenting with a recipe I found online for the regular bars and added cocoa and mint chips. He loves them. They cost very little and the best part is I can pronounce all the ingredients. There are a million variations that you could take from them.

Cocoa Chewy Bars with mint

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 T cocoa powder
Mint chips or Andy's candies bits to sprinkle on top
2 cups granola
1 cup rice crispy cereal

Bring to a boil butter, corn syrup, sugar, and cocoa. In a bowl, mix granola and cereal. Pour the liquid over the cereal and stir to coat. In two loaf pans lined with parchment and sprayed with cooking spray, pour 1/2 of mixture into each. Press down and sprinkle with candy or chips (The fewer that you sprinkle, the longer the package will last. The idea is to just give a hint of mint.). Let sit for 20 minutes before removing with the parchment and cutting into bars. I can usually get 7 bars from each pan.

Last week, I made them without the cocoa, but with Peanut butter added to the liquid and some roasted almonds mixed in with the cereal and topped with some dried cranberries and white chocolate chips. They were amazing.

I look forward to telling you how the yogurt turns out and about all the many other things I am trying around here. There's laundry soap, hand soap, and homemade pudding. Some have been good and some haven't. But it sure is fun trying. Making things better for my family. Helping them eat things that we can pronounce. Saving money. Did you know that we would have spent about $520 on granola bars this year? What? Doesn't that seem crazy? I think so too.

So this leads me back to my quest. To find things that I can make to replace what I would have bought. To save us some money. To eat what we can pronounce.