Banana Nut Cheerio Treats

As you may have noticed, Valentine's day is right around the corner. Have you got dinner planned? The flowers ready? Well, my valentine is a whole ocean away, so the only way I could celebrate was to make some delicious treats and send them his way. A week or so ago I sent off a care package with some goodies, including these crazy delicious snacks! 

I was thinking of making rice krispy treats and I found a lot of good recipes, but I wanted something a little more healthy. Some recipes had corn flakes, or brown rice crispies. Then I got to thinking. Cheerios! No, wait...Banana Nut Cheerios! So I looked around at different recipes and got a few ideas. In the end, this recipe was all my creation. Lets say I was experimenting, and the result was delicious. Instead of marshmallows I decided to try out peanut butter and honey. They are sweet and help keep the treats from falling apart. You could really use anything in place of the cheerios, but I thought the banana flavor would go great with peanut butter. Of course I added a few chocolate chips! They melted a little because I added them too soon after I took the pb and honey mix off the stove, but it caused no damage. Still delicious. See what happens when you take risks? Yummy things appear in front of you, sometimes. :)

At this point you could cut them into squares or use a shaped cookie cutter. I would suggest using parchment paper, it makes it easier to remove from the dish.

Banana Nut Cheerio Treats

Ingredients:

6 cups Banana Nut Cheerio cereal

2/3 cup peanut butter

2/3 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla 

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Measure cereal into large bowl. Set aside.
2. Melt peanut butter and honey in non stick sauce pan, stirring frequently.
3. Add cinnamon and vanilla, blend well.
4. Combine with cereal in separate bowl.
5. Press into large casserole dish sprayed with cooking oil or lined with parchment paper. (the larger the dish the thinner treats will be).
6. Place in fridge for 10 minutes. 
7. Carefully take mixture out of dish and cut into squares or use a cookie cutter and cut into shapes. (If the mixture will not come out, like mine, you can cut them in dish. I should have used parchment paper.)