"It's A Keeper" Nutritional Bars

1 cup pumpkin seeds ground
1 cup ground flax seed
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup wheat germ
2 cups oatmeal(rolled)
Place ingredients on a parchment lined baking sheet and place into a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and place in a large bowl.

Next combine 3/4 cup of maple syrup, 3/4 cup of honey in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add 1 cup of almond butter or peanut butter and blend well. Return sauce pan to heat and bring back to a boil. Remove from heat and blend well again and set aside.

Add 1 1/4 cup of dried fruit, a blend of various kind is good such as: dried apricots, dried cranberries, or raisins or any other dried fruit you enjoy.

Pour syrup mixture over the dry ingredients and blend thoroughly. Place on a parchment lined cookies sheet and pat down to desired thickness and shape into a rectangle to make ease of cutting into bars. It helps to wet your knife when you are cutting the bars.

Wrap each bar with plastic wrap to preserve freshness. You can put the bars in the refrigerator to keep fresh. I haven't frozen any for long term storage, but I believe it would work well. Enjoy!

For a less sweet variation reduce the maple syrup and honey to 1/2 cup each and increase the nut butter to 1 1/2 cup.