Day 23, January 23: "paleo" granola bars

For the past few weeks, I have been making my own nut milk. I posted about it here. Usually I use almonds, but today I decided to try cashews since I had a whole lot of them. Followed the same process I use for almonds. It came out really wonderful.  Tastes...like cashews. If you don't like cashews, you won't like cashew milk.

This meant I had leftover cashew nut solids. What to do with it? I already had plenty of what I've taken to calling Airquotes Granola. (because it has no oats in it. The recipe for that is here.) Didn't need to make any more of that.

I decided to experiment with making granola bars. Here's how I did it.

Turn the oven on to 300. I spread the nut solids in my trusty 9x12 pyrex dish. I baked it for fifty minutes at 300, stirring every once in a while, to dry it out. It wasn't completely dried by the time the 50 minutes was up, but it had a mealy consistency going on.

Turn the heat up to 325.

Then I mixed in a bowl:

• 1/2 c roughly chopped almonds
• 1/4 c roasted flax seeds
• 1/4 c sunflower seeds
• 1/4 c unsweetened coconut
• 1/2 c raisins
• pinch of salt

I stirred in the dried cashew solids, and spread the mixture out in my pyrex dish and baked for 10 minutes.

While the dry items were in the oven, I heated a small saucepan over low heat. I warmed and stirred together:

• 1/3 c honey
• 1/3 c almond butter
• generous shake of cinnamon
• bit of vanilla extract
• a couple tablespoons of water.

This produced a stiff mixture that held the bars together.

I removed the dry items from the oven and dumped them back into the big bowl. I took this moment to grease the pyrex dish with butter.

Then I used my clean hands to knead the honey/almond butter mixture into the dry items. I put the gooey ball into the greased pyrex and pressed it down into all the corners of the dish as firmly as I could. Baked it for 20 minutes, pulled it out and let it cool on a rack in the pan. When it was cool, I used a knife to cut it into bars. They were a bit crumbly but I cannot tell you how good they tasted. Given that my husband and I have sworn off sweets for the past three months, these tasted like heaven. I ate one, gave one to him, and then quick wrapped up the rest because I knew I could just keep eating them, all night long.

Okay, now here's the boring stuff:

What I exercised:

• Noon WOD. First time back in a week.
• Warmed up with agility ladder and climbing the cargo net. I made it almost all the way to the top. Smoked my biceps and forearms, wow.
• "Karen"
  150 Wallballs
  scaled to 10# ball
  11:50

Ugh. Its always tough going back after a break. Felt wheezy the whole WOD.

What I ate:

• 8:30 AM: breakfast quinoa (with flaxseeds, flax oil, raisins, and 8 oz cashew milk)
• 10:30: Cashew Cookie bar
• 11:30: Another Cashew Cookie bar (cashews: the theme of the day)
• 1 PM: post-WOD shake (banana, handful of spinach, 1/2 c blueberries, 1/4 c protein, 1/4 c coconut milk, 1/2 c cashew milk, ice)
• 4 PM: giant salad of spinach and lettuce, 1/2 avocado, 2 chopped up carrots, 2 hardboil eggs, and a wonderful dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, and capers
• 7 PM: protein loading--a Vega shake
• 8:30: "granola" bar
• 10 PM: 1 c cooked collards with a few lentils

My back and whole body are so tired...this WOD today wasted me. I hope I can make it through another WOD tomorrow.