Store Bought Granola Bars? You’ve Got Competition

Store bought granola bars? You’ve got competition. And that’s saying a lot, considering your homemade treats don’t have the built-in advantages of the ubiquitous but glitzy supermarket store bought breakfast bar.

You haven’t, for instance, set up a focus group for the purpose of finding out what they do and don’t like about your homemade cookies. You don’t have an advertising budget that runs to seven digits. And you certainly don’t pack your homely sweets in “convenient crush-proof packaging.”

That’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Real cookies. You know. Those things your grandma used to make?

Cookies?? Who the heck has time to make THOSE?

But yeah. When you pull yet another box of those supermarket store bought granola bars off the shelf and pile it into your cart, you feel a little pang that might just be guilt. You could make those yourself, you’re thinking. You could make them at a third of the price. They’d be healthier and tastier.

And when you rush your kid out the door on a hectic Monday morning when NO ONE had time to eat breakfast and you shove another one of those store bought granola bars into his little hands saying, “Here. Eat this,” aren’t you just a wee bit disgusted with yourself?

Yeah. You are. But hey. What can you do? There’s just not enough time for you to do more.

Cookies are a lot of work.

Cookies. Grandma made them a long time ago. Your mother too. But that was before women were liberated and joined the workforce. Now, instead of wearing frilly aprons and cooking their little hearts out, women are no longer little and no longer in the kitchen. For the most part they’re in the office. In between dropping off the dry-cleaning, picking up the kids from daycare, and balancing their checkbooks.

It’s true. But do you honestly know ANYONE who doesn’t like cookies?

Of course you don’t. The person who doesn’t like cookies does not exist.

How’s About A Compromise?

So let’s talk a compromise. Let’s say that once in a while, you’ll make cookies. You’ll carve out the time, just as you do for romance with your husband, and quality time with your kids. You’ll find a way to do it, because, hey! You’re Superwoman. You can do everything.

Your husband believes that. And so do your kids.

So you’ll make cookies and they’ll be cookies TO DIE FOR. The other kids will be begging your kid for a taste. They’ll trade him things: marbles, a half-dead turtle, iPhone 5’s.

He’ll come home and tell you about it. And this big ole smile will light up your face and you will feel vindicated. For a while.

And when the cookies are gone, you can look to the right and left of you in the breakfast bar aisle of the supermarket before you stealthily slide another box of those store bought granola bars off the shelf and into your cart, covering it up with fresh kale leaves (seriously???) lest anyone see. Even though they all buy them too.

Chewy Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Date Cookies

These giant oatmeal cookies are irresistible with their full tablespoon of cinnamon goodness and moist chunks of dates. They’re healthy as well as filling. Small children will find half a cookie fills them up. They can save the other half for a snack—or perhaps for sharing with a very good friend!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1 ½ cups packed dark brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 eggs
• 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (NOT quick-cooking oatmeal)
• 3 cups roughly chopped moist dates

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit. Line 3 cookie sheets with baking parchment paper.
2. Cream butter and brown sugar in large bowl. Beat in honey and eggs until mixture is smooth.
3. Sift flour, cinnamon, and salt together. Stir into creamed mixture with a wooden spoon.
4. Add oats and chopped dates. Stir until well combined.
5. Shape dough into 2-inch balls. Place 8 balls on each cookie sheet. Flatten each ball with your palm.
6. Bake until lightly brown, around 15 minutes. As soon as you take the cookies out of the oven, carefully remove each cookie from the cookie sheets with the aid of a spatula. Place cookies on wire racks to cool.

Makes 2 dozen large cookies

 

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