INGREDIENTS:
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup each, dried cranberries, chopped dried apricots, and even dried figs.
1 cup currants2 cups pitted dates roughly chopped
1 cup whole almonds roasted (ahead of time place on sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes at 400 on middle rack and allow to cool)
OPTIONAL: 1/2 cup chocolate chips (but they are a very good option)
grease a 9×13 pan and line it with parchment paper, making sure you have one inch above both long sides. This makes it easier to pull the bars out of the pan.
The nuts and dried fruit for this recipe are all interchangeable. You can exclude any seeds or nuts that you do not like. Just be sure that you have a consistency that will stick together once it is all well mixed and pressed into your pans.
While almonds are roasting, place dates in a small saucepan and add water to come to the top of the dates.
Add 1/2 cup dried apricots
Add 1/2 cup dried figs (optional)
turn heat to low and warm dried fruit and water mixture. Stir. Once it is warm, set aside and allow to soak for 15 minutes.
Remove dried fruit from saucepan with a slotted spoon and puree in food processor. Add two TBLSP. water from saucepan while machine is running.
Put dried fruit mixture into large mixing bowl.
Add peanut butter
Add honey
Put almonds and dried cranberries into the food processor and Pulse a few times until the almonds are chopped into small pieces. They should not be crumbs.
Pour this mixture into your large bowl
Put sunflower seeds, pecans or walnuts, flax seeds and pumpkin seeds into food processor. Add currants and puree several times. Most of these seeds will not break down and that is fine. This step will just mix them together nicely.
Poor this mixture into large bowl
Add chocolate chips
Here comes the fun part
wash your hands!
Get. In. There. With both hands and make sure the mixture is well combined. Don’t be rough with it, but mix it well.
Dump mixture into cake pan and spread as evenly as you can. Push it down firmly so that it is well condensed. They should be approximately 1 inch deep. If you end up with more mixture, prepare a second pan so you can make a larger batch.
Set the pan(s) in the fridge for one hour.
Remove from fridge and lift parchment from the pan. On a large cutting board, cut desired sizes of bars, trimming the uneven edges. Remember that these bars are packed full of healthy goodness and you won’t need them to be too big. I find that a good size is 2×1 inches, or 2×2 inches.
Wrap the bars individually in either waxed paper or saran wrap. store them in the fridge in a ziploc bag and eat them when you need a pick me up or a snack. They will keep for weeks in the fridge.
I know that you won’t be able to send these bars to school with your children because of the nuts, but if you are traveling or hiking or biking or playing or camping or just need a quick burst of energy,
look no further.
This creation will take no more than half an hour to make and the reviews I’m getting from my own
“little ones”
is super great. I’m hearing words like
AWESOME, FANTASTIC, AMAZING
I hope you will try these Nut Bars and let me know if you enjoy them.
♥