Life After I "Dew"

My all-time favorite holiday tradition is my family's annual cookie exchange.  We've been doing it as long as I can remember and even before that.  What started out as a way for my mom, aunt and grandma to gift their love of baking to friends and family has turned into a more simple family get-together.  We no longer bake millions of cookies in every variety you can imagine.  There's no more burnt hands from making hard candies.  Gone are our standard assortment of cookies and now everyone kind of makes what they want.  One thing that has remained the same throughout all these years are the cutout sugar cookies.

As much as everyone loves to complain about icing the cookies, it really is our most fun time together.  We get silly with our decorating, we eat more than we ice, we laugh, we listen to Christmas music and it's just good old fashion family fun.  Now that I have kids of my own I am so happy to be passing this tradition onto them.


This year I wanted to make a little something different than the standard "Christmas cookie" so when the folks at Honey Bunches of Oats® asked me to come up with a holiday treat I was up for the challenge and quickly ran to Kroger for my ingredients.  I decided on a peanut butter, chocolate treat bar that is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars {featuring Honey Bunches of Oats® }

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups peanut butter
• 2/3 cup maple syrup
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 cups Honey Bunches of Oats® Cereal {I used Honey Roasted}
• 2 milk chocolate bars

Instructions

• Microwave the peanut butter, syrup and sugar in a microwave safe bowl for 3 minutes. Stir every 30 seconds to one minute to avoid burning make sure it's melted all the way through.
• In a large bowl mix the cereal and your melted ingredients to coat
• Pour the mixture into a 9x9 baking dish and pack firmly
• Melt the chocolate bars
• Pour and spread the melted chocolate evenly over the cereal
• Let it firm up and once bars have set cut into squares and ENJOY!