However last weekend, Sara fed me an energy bar that was pretty yummy and only had 5 ingredients, which is such a rare and beautiful thing. I decided I must buy dates and make my own.
I found a set of recipes that seemed too easy to screw up and boy was I right. The only problem was I couldn't figure out how to work my brand new food processor... Seriously, appliances confuse me. I tried everything to no avail and ended up using my magic bullet which worked mostly fine.
The dates and walnuts blended together tastes strangely (and deliciously) like cookie dough. I ate so much of the batter out of the bowl that I feared I wouldn't be able to make a full batch of granola bars, so I decided to add the raisins and oatmeal in to beef it up. This recipe was 100% off the cuff and still so delicious. Pretty sure you could put any kind of add ins in here and it would be tasty. Without further ado, here ya go:
Homemade Walnut Date Oatmeal Raisin Energy Bars (Original recipe here)
1 cup dates
2 cups warm water
1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Directions
- Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
- Put dates and raisins in a bowl and pour warm water over top. Let sit for 10 minutes until plump and then strain.
- While the fruit is plumping, pulse the walnuts in a food processor, or magic bullet (if you don't have or don't know how to work your food processor like me) until they are finely chopped. If you want bigger chunks of nuts, add some extras in towards the end.
- Then add the dates adn raisins to the nut mixture in the food processor and pulse until everythign starts to come together. Then mix in cinnamon and oatmeal.
- Plop into the loaf pan and spread out with a spoon.
- Refrigerate for 30 min, then cut them into 6 bars and individually wrap for snacks.
