Lazy Saturday…

 

I thoroughly enjoyed today. Nice and lazy.

We stayed in bed till about 10, got up and went to get bagels. Yum. Came home and set up our computer stations.

ha. I managed to wrap a few presents.

And then we skyped with my family! It was my dads birthday yesterday and they were celebrating today.

Dinner was next, so we bundled up. (it’s cold and very rainy out)

btw…this is me on a true lazy day. Not showered, yoga pants, and the worlds most comfortable boots.

Finally we ended the day by making our very own clif bars. Seriously, these are yummy and totally worth making!

First up, millet puffs. Or rice crispies, or whatever puffs you want.

Then quick oats, followed by rolled oats.

Then you add your toppings. In our case, raisins, cranberries, chia seeds, hazelnuts, almonds, flax seed meal. (do not use whole flax).

Now you work on your wet stuff. You want to add it all to a pot over medium heat.

First, peanut butter or really any kind of nut butter you prefer. Added bonus if you make the nut butter yourself!

Add unphotographed, molasses, brown rice syrup, coconut oil, date paste, vanilla bean or vanilla oil.

Mix until it looks like poop, and is kinda runny.

Add wet to hot ingredients. And get in there with your hands and mix. This might take some time to be patient. You want it all covered and sticky.

Mix, Mix, Mix.

Put into a pan, any size will do. It just depends on how thick you want these. I think our pan was around 12’'x8'’. Throw some plastic wrap on top and use a rolling pin or something hard to really roll them out flat and even.

It helps if you have a handsome man doing the work.

Now, put the tray into the fridge, or let cool completely on the counter.

Enjoy a yummy beer.

Yes, that beer is from Japan. It was delicious.

After a short time has passed. Take your bars out and cut them. We got 15 bars out of our pan but we cut them smallish.

NOTE: these are going to be used by us for an energy bar. Probably something we will take with us on long bike rides (Eric) or long runs (Meg) so we didn’t make them huge because you really don’t need to be chowing down on more than a couple bites for an energy supplement.

We used this recipe first. See, we made a batch earlier today but then realized we could make them a little better so we made another batch. The second batch was pretty amazing so I think we might be keeping the recipe a secret. =o) Feel free to take the first recipe and play with it. Figure out what works for you guys.

Btw, we loaded all the ingredients into a online recipe calculator, and we got some rough calorie and protein estimates. For 15 bars with everything we made in the second batch, they tally in at:

• 215 Calories per bar
• 30g Carbs
• 9g Fat
• 6g Protein

Not bad, but there is definitely some room for improvement. Especially in the protein part. Next we just need to figure out how cost effective these are. I am guessing we are going to be saving a lot of money on not having to buy clif bars anymore, but I can’t wait to find out how much!