We all love our kids, but they can be exhausting. Every night I have to walk
with Kairo till he falls asleep and before I know it I've got to wake up go
to work, and then it's the afternoon and I hit a wall, so I've created this power
surge granola bar full of nutrients and real ingredients for when you really need a
pick-me-up.
Our powerhouse bars begin by reconstituting some dried fruits that I
really love. So I've got some apricot and cherry, some raisins, but any dried fruit
that you have on hand, by all means throw them in for natural sweetness and
chewiness. So I've got some hot water here and just pour them on to
reconstitute them, soften them up a little bit. I'm doing this first in the
process so that they can chill for five minutes, kind of get soft and do their
thing. So leave them to the side let them kind of absorb the water and soften up,
it'll give our bar a great, great texture. So while that happens, I've got a dry
bowl. We're gonna start with three cups of oats. You can see the beautiful
texture on the oat, gives it a great nutty flavor. And then
we go in with a little bit of whole wheat flour. You can use white
all-purpose flour but this is a great trick to get a little more healthy with
our bars. So go in, a little bit of flour, beautiful whole wheat flour, I've got
some ground flax seeds, so you buy the flax seed whole and then you grind them
up. You could do it in a spice grinder if you have a nice clean grinder, but the
the flaxseed will give me protein, will give me fibre, these are all superfoods.
Really really great way to get heart-healthy stuff into these bars.
Same idea with the chia seeds. Now chia seeds are one of my wife's favourite
ingredients. One of the first things she made for me was chia seeds and yogurt,
and they got all in my teeth, but it's a superfood that she loves and when I
baked it into a bar the chia seed will absorb a lot of the liquid and kind of
dissolve into the bar so won't get it all in my teeth and that's what I like
to do with these. A little bit of cinnamon of course plays really nicely
with the dried fruit, all into the dry bowl and then of course we need salt. I
always season everything, I want to taste the cinnamon, I want to taste the
oats, I want to taste the fruit. All into my dry bowl. So we go in like that you
could see the cinnamon already giving me a nice color put a protein powder in
there if you want to make your own protein bar take the same recipe put
away protein or vegetable powder in there that any dried fruit
that you like here we go simple got my dry Bowl done now I've got
my wet bowl so I've got all-natural maple syrup real natural sweetness right
in a little bit of olive oil a healthy fat heart-healthy fat you can feel good
about these bars a little bit olive oil keeps our bar moist as well so I
actually have shelf life with these bars for up to a week I've got a little bit
of espresso powder I'm gonna pour it into my wet Bowl I had a lot of coffee
before we had a baby now I have you know those big that kind of size I'll have
five of those a day I'm gonna mix this
just like that and then one at a time two eggs the eggs are a glue they allow
everything to stick all those dry ingredients will incorporate and combine
and cook together with the help of these eggs so there's one I'm gonna go in with
one more for all that dry dry bowl mix to incorporate just like so I smelled
the coffee waking me up already fruity olive oil and of course the maple syrup
love that natural sweetness it'll play really nicely with the cinnamon and the
fruit here's the wet Bowl and then we go right into our dry Bowl just like so
couldn't be easier just like this I mean you do get the
caffeine crash in the afternoon so that's why these bars are great and
they're better than the store-bought bars sometimes you get a store-bought
granola bar or a protein bar and you think they're healthy and you feel good
about yourself but they're full of sugar they're full of preservatives you don't
know what's in them this is a great alternative that has natural sweetness
natural sugars it's awesome when it's almost totally incorporated that's what
I want to go on with my extra flavors so I've got a little bit of unsweetened
coconut that I truly love for texture for flavor right in some pumpkin seeds
nice crunch great flavor as well almonds chock full of protein as well
unsalted almonds really really nice and then this is what happens to my fruit
after they've kind of reconstituted in that warm water just for five minutes
you can see that they've softened and that along with the maple syrup will
give us a chew and a sweetness naturally at the very end we're gonna slowly and
gently fold it in making sure it's evenly incorporated without over mixing
and you can see how tasty these are gonna be the oats the almond the
cinnamon smells good so now I'm gonna take this mixture over to a greased kind
of baking tray and you put it in you pour it in and you could do this with a
spatula you want really really nice even thickness throughout you can start it
off like this spread it around and if you want to really get into the corners
stamp your hands and get into the corners like so you want them all to be
an even thickness so you have a nice uniform bar 25 to 30 minutes 325 degrees
to cook all the way through it'll still have a little bit of a chew and it'll
stay nice and moist the whole week this is one of those recipes that you can
throw in your Sunday afternoon repertoire and it gets into the habit of
you have it all week they keep you know in an airtight container all week and
even getting Cairo or your kids involved in doing something like this they can
pick their dried fruits they can pick whether it's maple or honey and
different flavorings and it gets them in the habit of those heart healthy natural
snacks throughout their childhood check this out our granola mixture is totally
cooked and I've let it cool for 5-10 minutes just so that I can easily remove
it I've got the parchment paper lip here to help me ease it out onto my cutting
board the smell of the cinnamon and the fruit is really waking up my senses here
and then you just want to cut them to your desired shape here just like so as
big or as small as you like and I like to actually have these that's a suitable
portion I think just like this
awesome look at that all natural ingredients you know what the next time
you have to fight the afternoon slump pack these bars away in your diaper bag
and you'll never go tired again honey I made us a snack these energy bars what
do you think Hey thank you okay
you
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