Eat Your Heart Out LARA – Homemade Energy Bars

You know that feeling you get when you see something so simple, so ingenious and it’s making someone a ton of money? When you say to yourself, “I can totally do that” and then you come back to reality, where laziness and apathy override any attempts at creativity and you say to yourself, “nah, I can just buy that.” 

I feel that way about most energy bars, particularly the ones sold at natural food stores. Those two ounce whole food bars are utter gold mines and I always feel resentful that I am paying for a few ingredients blended up, extruded out and beautifully packaged when I could totally make these at home and save a chunk of change. For years, I have been saying this about my favorite whole food snack, the Larabar.

The good folks at Larabar definitely know what they’re doing. Although their product line has expanded over the years, the simplest bar they make is their flagship line which boasts that each flavor has no more than nine ingredients and are little more than unsweetened fruits, nuts and spices. There are nearly 20 flavors to choose from, all of which are delicious configurations of these three ingredients – nuts, fruits and spices.

I have been convincing myself that I should make an attempt at homemade Larabars (or something close to them) for a long time but I always talk myself out of it, citing how long it would take and how many ingredients it would require. But a funny thing happened last night. Rather than making a batch of Paleo Bacon Brownies (which I do hope to get on sooner rather than later) Dan suggested that we make something out of the dates and coconut overloading our pantry. In a moment of weakness, I finally succumbed to the homemade energy bar.

I haven’t come across any recipes in my own cookbook collection for something close to an energy bar, so I did a quick internet search for “date paleo bar” and had over 2 million hits. Sheesh. Although not always the best approach to internet queries, I went with the first page on the list and it was perfect!  Thanks, Turtlewoman, for creating this great recipe. I modified it slightly, here’s the recipe we used:

1/3 cup raw cacao (or you can use regular cocoa powder)

1 1/2 cups raw, pitted Medjool dates

1/3 cup raw ground flax seed

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup raw almonds (soaked and dehydrated work too)

1/2 cup raw walnuts (soaked and dehydrated work too)

1/2 cup raw coconut shavings

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons raw, expeller pressed coconut oil

1/8 teaspoon sea salt (optional)

The original recipe called for dried fruit, such as Goji berries, cranberries or cherries but I swapped those out for coconut. I was going more for a chocolate coconut energy bar kind of a thing.

For this recipe, I used my food processor and also used the dry grain container on my Vitamix to grind the flax seeds into flax meal.

Flax seeds are interesting. If you eat them whole, you will barely get any nutritional benefit. The ol’, they went right through me routine. If you buy pre-packaged flax seed meal and expose it to air or light, it will become rancid and again, you will not benefit very much from that. My solution is to buy whole flax seeds and grind them up just before you use them. Even a tiny food processor will grind these fickle little seeds up for you. If you’re going to eat flax seeds, you might as well make it worth your while.

Steps one through three! Put the pitted dates into your food processor fitted with the s-blade attachment. If they are a little hard, I would add a tablespoon of warm water. Blend until a thick paste forms. Add chocolate, ground flax seeds, vanilla, cinnamon, coconut oil and salt. Pulse to blend thoroughly. Finally add the nuts and coconut. Pulse mixture until the nuts and coconut are to the size you desire. It should look something like this:

Pour mixture onto a wax paper lined pan. Press mixture down with a wooden spoon or spatula until you have a rectangle shape about 1/2 inch thick. Another option is to just ditch this “bar” shape and roll out little spheres. I created little lines with a knife so I could cut equal sized bars. Once the loaf is the size and shape you are looking for, transfer to the fridge or freezer to cool until firm.

Once firm, you can remove and slice up your energy bars. This made about 6 bars, weighing in about 2.5 ounces each. Store in an airtight container in your fridge. Keep each layer separated by a layer of wax paper to prevent sticking.

Boom! Energy Bars. These things are AMAZING and seriously taste just like the real deal, even better! This is closest to the Chocolate Coconut Chew bar but tastes so much better with the addition of a little sea salt to the mix. Since these also have flax seed meal, coconut and coconut oil, there are a lot of really good fats in these homemade energy bars. Not to mention cinnamon which helps promote circulation and raw cacao which has a little caffeine boost. I am a jerk for not attempting these sooner.

These whole food energy bars are also raw, vegan, gluten-free, paleo and bottom line.. super tasty! They do have a base of dates, so there’s a fair amount of sugar in these suckers but at least you get plenty of dietary fiber along for the ride. This recipe is a great basic guideline for tons of other flavor combinations. Let your imagination run wild!

I can’t believe how long I’ve been putting this off. This was REALLY easy, and I don’t mean like making Shrimp Stock-easy. This is like 10 ingredients, 10 minutes, really rewarding snack-easy.

Listen to yourself this time, you can totally do this!

Geel Rys – Yellow Rice…er, Quinoa

The perfect accompaniment to a pot of curry is either a heaping pile of rice or some sort of fried flat bread whose purpose is to assist you in shoveling heaping mounds of curry into your mouth. Don’t get me wrong, I love bread and rice but really try to keep consumption to a minimum. I am one of those weirdos who prefer to use properly prepared pseudo-grains like buckwheat, amaranth and quinoa in my kitchen. When it comes to wheat, rice, oats and even pseudo-grains, I try to limit my use as much as possible. I get more than enough grains in liquid form via beer, one of my great loves.

This swap-out approach has backfired on me more than a few times. For example, trying to make a “healthy” version of chocolate cake with whole spelt flour and date sugar was a near disaster. I have learned that it’s best just to have an occasional bite of the “real deal” and skip out on some of these alternative preparations that taste like crap.

There are times, however, when you can easily replace one ingredient for another with great success. Swapping out rice for quinoa, a pseudo-grain closely related to beets and spinach, for has worked out well for me in the past. I really enjoy quinoa, which has that chewy bite you’re looking for with cooked grains and is also a complete protein. When I was looking for something to accompany my Quick Chicken Curry  I found a recipe for Geel Rys, which is a South African preparation of Yellow Rice. This recipe for yellow rice from The Africa News Cookbook  is really different from the standard Spanish approach and was the perfect side dish for my pot of curry. The list of ingredients was pretty short and I just swapped out the rice for quinoa, out one-for-one. Here’s the recipe I used:

4 tablespoons oil or butter

2 cups quinoa (or rice, if you prefer)

2 sticks cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 tsp turmeric

pinch of saffron (optional)

1 cup goji berries (or raisins)

This recipe can be made in a pot on the stove but I have always had great luck cooking quinoa in my rice cooker! It’s very little hassle and it can stay warm while you get the rest of your meal ready. If you are looking for a rice cooker, my recommendation is to find one with a stainless steel insert, rather than aluminum or non-stick. There are some food safety issues with both of those materials and stainless steel last much longer, anyway. If you aren’t interested in using a rice cooker, or don’t currently have one, just prepare this recipe on the stove. No problem!

Some people have gastric upset when eating grains. Quinoa, in particular, has a high saponin content which causes the grain to taste bitter and can upset your stomach. The traditional Peruvian preparation calls for a long soak in warm water, followed by a thorough rinsing to remove the antinutrients. Sometimes I do this, but generally I just give the quinoa a good rinse under running water. If you have a storied history with grains (pseudo or otherwise), I’d say give the traditional soak method a try.

In a pot over medium heat, or in your rice cooker, add the fat of your choice. I used ghee, but you can easily use a vegetable oil or skip out on it all together. Add the quinoa and mix thoroughly.

Once all of the quinoa is well coated with the fat, you can add the remaining ingredients. The recipe called for raisins, but I absolutely abhor raisins unless they are cooked in cinnamon bread. I used Goji berries instead. I actually don’t really care the the taste of Goji berries out of hand but they were perfect in this dish. Plus, Goji berries are the darling of the health food world. Often referred to as a super food, for what it’s worth.

 Combine all of the ingredients, add 2 cups of water and start up your rice cooker. If you are cooking on the stove, bring to a boil, cover and then reduce the heat to simmer.

After about 20 minutes, once all of the water is absorbed, your quinoa will be done! The quinoa will be tender but not mushy and the Goji berries will have plumped up. Give it a good stir and serve (hopefully with a delicious serving of Quick Chicken Curry)!

I really enjoyed this new quinoa recipe and it was every bit as satisfying as the rice that typically accompanies curry dishes. This South African-spiced quinoa worked really well with the spicy curry I made but would be great enjoyed with lots of other dishes. One thing I would recommend is to remove the cinnamon sticks once it’s done cooking, especially if you plan to keep it warm in your rice cooker. I came back the next morning to a heaping pile of cinnamon flavored quinoa. Still tasty, but more along the lines of something I’d eat for breakfast.

Another tasty recipe down! Only 90 more to go.