Homemade, No-Bake Energy Bars

So my kiddo wanted to make cookies, but it was FAR too hot to turn on the oven if I wasn't getting paid for it. Besides, what she really wanted was to eat cookies, and I'm not all about the eating of cookies for entertainment purposes. So we broke out the food processor and all the random bags of dried fruit from Costco that I am compelled to buy, and we just went crazy, blending things up until we had a bowl of homemade energy bar-stuff.



When we were done, adding and adjusting a bit at a time, we had two recipes that were quick, cheap (well, cheaper than $1.50 commercial bars anyway), shelf stable and pretty tasty. These are definitely high-fiber, low protein, though, so if you are not accustomed to a--ahem--high fiber diet you might not want to eat a whole lot of them at once.

Here's the recipes:

Chocolate Cherry No-Bake Energy Bars
10 oz. dried plums
5 oz. dried cherries
6 oz. whole uncooked oats
4 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz. Nutella

Apri-Coco No-Bake Energy Bars
10 oz. dried apricots
6 oz. dried plums
6 oz. whole uncooked oats
4 oz. shredded, unsweetened coconut
2 oz. almond butter

For either recipe: process ingredients in a food processor to a uniform puree. It will be very thick. When mixture forms a ball, it is probably ready. Press mixture into a sheetpan and smooth to make the mixture as uniform in thickness as possible. Slice into 2 oz. bars (I got about 16 bars out of each recipe) and wrap each bar individually in plastic wrap.

That's one way to run errands

Needed to get the drivers side mirror on my car fixed; also needed to be at the optometrist (inside Costco) for an exam and new contacts. The car place and Costco were about 2.5 miles apart, so I dropped off my car and ran to my optometry appointment.

Here's me having successfully having made it to the Costco parking lot.

Running back to the car wasn't so fun: there were a lot more cars along Aurora; it had warmed up; and most significantly I had my pupils dialated for the eye exam. I ran out of Costco (hadn't thought to bring sun glasses) and the first white car I saw was like staring directly at the sun. Before the pain of retinal burn forced me to shield my eyes, it was kinda trippy walking around the parking lot feeling like my brain was about 3 F-Stops overexposed.

About two minutes outside convinced me that I could not safely run back to my car. I would have to keep my eyes pretty much closed, and little good could come of that, so I walked across the parking lot to the Big 5 Sporting Goods and bought a Cookies & Cream Power Bar and a cheap pair of shades. ...Much better!