Nutritious Granola Bar Recipe

I will be the first to admit that I'm not a great cook.  I rotate through the same five or so things for dinner most of the time and make enough to have leftovers for several more days.  I prefer snacking on various fruits, veggies, and whatnot instead of actually making lunch.  So that just leaves breakfast.  For some reason I need to eat right when I wake up or else I get extremely nauseated, so cooking something for breakfast doesn't work well for me unless I have a little snack first.  But then what's the point of cooking breakfast, amirite?  In order to add simplicity to my life, I like to have the same thing for breakfast every day so I don't have to think when I'm feeling sick and hungry first thing in the morning.  I used to have greek yogurt every day, but that breakfast isn't working for me anymore.  I concocted my own granola bar recipe and I have that for breakfast now instead along with a glass of almond milk.  It's not the healthiest breakfast in the world, but it's packed with nutrients, and it's certainly better than cereal or waffles or muffins!

Here's the recipe:

• 3 cups old fashioned oats
• 1 1/2 cups natural peanut butter/any nut butter
• 3/4 cup honey (more or less to taste, I could probably get away with less personally)
• 2 scoops protein powder*
• 1/4 cup chia seeds*
• 1/4 cup hemp hearts*
• 1/4 cup freshly ground flaxseed*
• 1 Tbsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp extra virgin coconut oil
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

 *-these ingredients are optional

Put all of these ingredients into a big mixing bowl and stir it together with a large spoon.  

Scoop it out into a 9x13 pan lined with parchment paper and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours.

Cut into bars and enjoy!  What I love about this recipe is that it has a decent dose of protein and fat instead of just carbs like lots of breakfast foods, and that it has lots of micronutrients too!  The chia seeds, hemp hearts, and freshly ground flaxseed have lots of vitamins and minerals that your body needs and can be hard to find in the kinds of foods us Americans typically eat.  Cinnamon can be slightly helpful with stabilizing blood sugar levels.  Coconut oil has all kinds of claims surrounding it which I don't know if they are true or not, but it can't hurt.  I do think that fat is important and not necessarily something to always avoid.  I use the Garden of Life brand of protein powder because it is made out of vegetables and legumes only.  Normal protein powders made with whey or whatever they put in them makes my stomach really upset and this is the only one that I've tried that doesn't do that.  Together these ingredients make a pretty nutritious breakfast despite how awesome it tastes.  The best thing about this recipe is you can change up the ingredients any way you want to and it will still be great.  Add more cinnamon, leave out the hemp hearts (because who has that sitting around???) or double the chocolate chips.  As long as it's wet/dry enough it will make a great granola bar.  So please experiment with this recipe and let me know what you come up with!