Farm Snax
We’ve needed a quick and nutritious snack for short breaks during work hours. I adapted this great recipe from the loveable Smitten Kitchen (a King Arthur Flour original). We try not to use processed sugars in general around here, especially not for a simple snack so eliminated the 1/2 cup sugar, kept the honey and substituted light corn syrup for simple syrup I made up myself. Substitute olive or sunflower oil for butter and you’ve got yourself a vegan, gluten-free treat. Let the dried fruit mix inspire you but definitely stick to the shredded coconut and if you follow my low-sugar trend, keep the flax to help hold bars together. I ground some flax too, though, to reap the Omega-3 benefits. Soon we’ll be growing sunflower, beekeeping (and harvesting honey) and constructing a dehydrator to dry our papayas, mangoes, pineapples…for now we used traditional granola dried fruits.
Dry ingredients:
• 1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
• 1/3 cup oat flour (or finely grind oats in a food processor)
• 1/8 cup flaxmeal (or finely grind flax seeds in coffee grinder)
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups dried fruits & nuts mix; I used:
• ½ c raisins
• ½ c almonds
• ½ c coconut flakes
• ½ c apricots/prunes
• 1/8 c flax
• 1/8 c sunflower seeds
Wet ingredients:
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 tbsp melted butter
• ¼ cup honey
• 2 tbsp simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, boiled)
• 1 tbsp water
Preheat the oven to 350°F (=175°C). Grease ~8×8 pan. (Ditch the parchment paper save a tree run free). Stir together all the dry ingredients, including the fruit and nuts. In a separate bowl, whisk together the vanilla, melted butter, honey, peanut butter, simple syrup and water. Toss the wet ingredients with the dry until the mixture is evenly crumbly. Spread in the prepared pan, pressing them in firmly to ensure they are molded to the shape of the pan. (I sort of patted it with a spatula. That was fun.)
Bake the bars about 30 minutes, until they’re brown around the edges and light brown on top.
Let bars cool in pan. Chill pan in the fridge for 30 minutes to help set – if not, they crumble. They were still a little crumbly, but not dry – and we’ll probably eat leftover chunks with yogurt for breakfast. Store in refrigerator – she says they also freeze well. xxoo
