More granola bars - nut-free, dairy-free, egg-free, and portable!

I found a good granola bar recipe that is nut-free and dairy-free.  And with a simple substitution, it is now egg-free!  Just in time for summer day camp lunches and our first family camping trip with our dairy-allergic, egg-allergic friends, and nut-allergic friends.  This recipe is flexible enough so that you can add in a favorite bar ingredient or sneak in some more healthy stuff for an extra nutritional boost.

Granola bars  
Adapted from PregoCook's Playgroup Granola Bar recipe on AllRecipes.com

2 cups rolled oats (old-fashioned oats are best but quick-cooking works fine, too)
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar (I use a little less)
1/2 cup wheat bran or wheat germ
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed meal (optional)
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup canola oil
1 Tbsp ground flaxseed meal + 3 Tbsp water, mixed
2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup of "extras" such as:

• dried fruit, rehydrated in hot water and chopped into raisin-sized pieces
• dairy-free semisweet chocolate chips (I use Trader Joe's)
• unsalted, roasted sunflower seeds
• up to 1/2 cup sunflower seed butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease or line 13"x9" pan with aluminum foil.
2. Combine oats, flour, wheat bran, sugar, cinnamon and optional flaxmeal in mixing bowl. 
3. Make a well in the dry mixture.  Add honey, oil, flaxmeal/water mixture, and vanilla to the well.  Mix dry and wet ingredients until well combined.
4. Stir in the 2/3 cup of granola "extras".
5. Spread granola mixture onto 13"x9" baking pan.  Mine didn't completely cover the pan so I shaped mine into about a 11"x9" area.
6. Bake for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned.  (The original recipe suggested 30-35 minutes for baking.  My first batch was burnt at 25 minutes, and perfect at 20 minutes.  Do start checking at 17 minutes!)
7. Let cool for 5 minutes.  Cut into bar pieces while the granola is still warm.  If the granola is completely cooled, it hardens.  This makes it really tricky to cut your bars without ending up with broken pieces and a sore forearm. What worked well for me was cutting them but leaving the bars on the pan until they completely cooled.  Then I carefully ran the knife around the cut edges to make sure the bars would easily separate.  They came off the pan just fine.
8. Store bars in an airtight container. I kept these hearty snacks in the car for those unexpected hunger pains.