Yum!
I’ve been meaning to make my own energy bars for a very long time. According to my Pinterest board, I’ve been meaning to make them for 15 weeks, ever since I pinned this recipe for Cherry Pie Larabars! Turns out I didn’t even use that particular recipe, but my point is that the intention to make a healthy energy bar has been in my mind for a while.
For those who don’t know what a Larabar is: it’s an energy bar, made of very few ingredients, combinations of different nuts and dried fruits. I’ve tried a couple flavours in the past and did not like, but I was very open to the idea of making some of these simple bars at home, especially since those bars are pretty pricey!
I had a lovely sushi lunch with my friend Laura the other day, and amidst talk of dating no-no’s and the upcoming running season, we talked about trying to eat healthier, plant-based meals and she reminded me about this great blog, Oh She Glows. It’s a vegan blog with all kinds of delicious-looking recipes, and I’m having a good time looking through the archives! When I looked it up again, the first recipe on the homepage was for homemade Larabars, quelle coincidence. Anyways, I was inspired, blah-dee-blah, and found this recipe for Dark Chocolate Cherry Energy Bites that I made in due haste, yestereve.
I don’t have a very powerful food processor. It is tiny. I think the issues I’m having with these bars being slightly more crumbly than I’d like is due to the fact that I had to process the individual ingredients one at a time in my mini food processor, and then combine all the ingredients with a wooden spoon and my hands. They pressed nicely into the pan and stuck together, but didn’t hold up 100% when I put one in my bag to take to school. But the good news is, they’re delicious! So tasty. Considering that I’ve never liked dates before, ever, eating a nut-and-date-based energy bar was remarkably pleasant. Other notes: I couldn’t find dried cherries as per the recipe, so I used dried cranberries that are flavoured like cherries. That’s sort of weird, but I just went with it. The recipe only made 8 bars, and they are dense with healthy, pure, raw ingredients.
I’m excited to experiment with different flavours of homemade Larabars! I like making trail mixes every once in a while, but these bars are a more compact version of the same thing and I think I might like them better, because bars are more fun to eat, n’est-ce pas?
Happy Thursday! TGIAF!
