Brown Rice Cereal Bars

One of my sisters is a gourmet cook. She can make a chocolate soufle on a campfire.  Impressive, yes.  She can go into the woods with only a knife and come out looking like she'd been grocery shopping.   She gets her Flambo on. I have learned many things from her over the past couple of years, and one of those things is: Freshly ground pepper.  Use it all the time.  Skip the ground black pepper in the shaker.  Oh no. Yawn-a-roonie.  The grocery store carries small grinders that you can keep in your purse when you go restaurant hopping and need a little life in your food.  Mine is too big. Another of my sisters works in a variety store and bought me this:

A super sized pepper grinder.  Yes. we use it, especially my insatiable son.

Another thing I learned from my gourmet sister was how to make Brown Rice Cereal Bars.  It's full of wonderful, healthy, Hippie food--you know, brown rice, golden raisins, sunflower seeds, almond butter....Hippie food.  If you  haven't grown up in the 60's you might not now what I'm talking about.

Brown Rice Cereal Bars

*thanks to Sharon

6 cups Puffed Brown Rice Cereal (I get mine from sqWal-Mart)

1 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup sunflower seeds (or get your Hippie Flambo on and add pumpkin seeds too)

1 tsp cinnamon (opt)

3/4 cup creamy Almond Butter (Cashew Butter works well also)

1/2 cup honey

Spray 2 12-cup muffin tins with a cooking spray.

In a small saucepan, combine Almond butter and honey.  Heat on medium heat, stirring often, till combined and warm.

In a large mixing bowl, combine Brown Rice Cereal, raisins, seeds and cinnamon (I personally don't bother with cinnamon). 

Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and stir, mixing well, coating cereal. 

Press cereal mixture into muffin cups and let cool.  Makes about 22-24