Meatless Monday: Faux Larabars!

I was planning to make granola bars today for my kids, but was thrown for a {good!} loop when I saw some girlfriends talking about homemade Larabars on Facebook this morning. {Thanks Shannah & Endy!}

My kids are starving ALL.THE.TIME. You would think that I never feed them. Or that they have a hollow leg, as my grandfather used to say. Nope, I've checked. Just growing kids. And, like any kid who's been exposed to the joyous highs of prepackaged HFCS-laden snacks, they would rather have something store-bought than homemade. My Ethiopians are actually pretty good about eating fruit or yogurt for a snack, but my home-grown kid tells me "Mooooooooom, I want something good." Sometimes it's hard to believe he's a 6 year old boy and not a preteen girl.

Where was I going with that? Oh, yes, I love Larabars and my kids love granola bars, but the good ones can get expensive, plus there's all the waste of individually packaged bars, so I tried my hand at these recipes this morning~

Hot Fudge Brownie Larabars by Chocolate-Covered Katie

Fruit & Nut Bars by Everyday Paleo

I used elements of each recipe, plus my friend Shannah's suggestion of adding cocoa powder and chocolate chips...because chocolate makes everything better. As all the ladies have reported, you can really change this recipe to add fruits and nuts that you like. I used a combination of nuts that I had in the house and the only dates I could find at my little grocery store. Here's what I ended up with~

Faux Chocolate Larabars

• 1/2 c raw almonds
• 1 c walnuts
• 2 Tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 8oz bag of dates {Note: My store only had chopped dates, which are slightly dried. I would recommend using whole pitted dates - see right - which are juicier / stickier. I fixed this by adding about a tablespoon of coconut oil.}
• Pinch of kosher salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Dump it all into your food processor and process until sticky. I then pressed the mixture into an 8x8 pan and stuck it in the freezer for about 30 minutes. They were easier to cut and remove from the pan this way. This made 8 good sized bars, but you could cut it into 12 kid-sized bars as well.

Enjoy! This is such a perfect start to the morning - fruit, protein and chocolate.

This post is linked to: Midnight Maniac's Meatless Mondays | Just Another Meatless Monday | Dittle Dattle | Motivate Me Monday | Creative Me Mondays | The Kurtz Korner |