Nutty-O Bars

For all the 40-30-30 balanced bars that I have seen out there, they all seem to have one or more problems: cost, unfavorable fats (partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil), storage (needs refrigeration). Also, none of them were Rice Krispie Bars!!!

Well, this isn't a Rice Krispie bar either, but I think it will knock your socks off!

Ingredients:

Grease 9x13 cake pan with spray on vegetable cooking spray. Set

In a large bowl measure out the Cheerios, soynuts and almonds and TVP. Set aside. .

In a large microwave bowl melt marshmallows on high for 1-1/2 minutes, longer as necessary to melt marshmallows. Add Peanut oil and flavoring.

. Pour it over the cereal and mix it around to coat. I will warn you right now, there is NOT a lot of marshmallow sauce to cover this stuff. I take a hard spatula and cut into the cereal mixture to put that goo all over the cereal. THIS IS NOT EASY, but the effort is well worth the result!

Pour into the greased cake pan. There are two ways that you can do this: You can spray your hands with the vegetable cooking spray and make yourself crazy with the cereal sticking to your hands, or you can put a glob of butter on your hands, smear it all over them, then press the mixture into place with no sticking to your hands.

The first time I made these, the kids really liked them, though they commented that they weren't very sweet. You could take about 1 teaspoonful of fructose and sprinkle it over the top right after pressing it into the pan in order to set off the sweeter flavors. By the end of the pan, the kids had fallen in love with these bars and no one cared that they weren't real sweet.

After the mixture has cooled for about 30 minutes, you can cut it into bars by cutting 3 widthwise and 10 lengthwise. Very crunchy!