Almost Clean Cherrio Bars

I know "almost" isn't really what most of us are looking for when we are searching for clean recipes but lets be honest, most of us can't live a life on 100% clean, organic, raw, whole foods diet. If you're like us you make your best effort every day to eat REAL healthy foods and move on with your life.  One of the biggest thing's i've been doing is trying to find mostly healthy substitutes for the thing I love. One being TREATS. I loooove treats! Growing up my mom would make these delicious peanut butter m&m cheerio bars. They were sweet, nutty, salty, chocolatey, chewy… ohhhh so good! And so fattening and horrible for you. They are loaded with butter, high fructose corn syrup, a full cup of sugar… you get it! :( I got some m&m's on sale, and with coupons last night and today I was determined to find SOMETHING I could make with them! I don't even have white sugar in the house so I knew I couldn't cave and make cookies… and i'm really hating the after taste of some of the substitute "fake" sugar sweeteners i've tried in a couple of things. So her's what I came up with…

Almost Clean Cherrio Treats 
1/2 C Honey
1/8 C Agave
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 C Peanut Butter
1/2 C Nuts
3 C Cherrios
3/4 Cup M&M

Over medium heat combine agave and honey in sauce pan. Bring to boil (stirring constantly) and let boil for 1 min. Add peanut butter and vanilla and stir over heat for another min or two. (Sorry I wasn't timing :-/) Sir in Cherrios and nuts, then gently fold in M&M's. Press into greased baking sheet.

*To make it clean you can omit m&m's, or, use an organic high percentage of cocao bar chunked. You can find an organic cereal similar to cherries' too.