Now that the older one goes to “big boy school”, I need to plan ahead for his lunch box and also his “van snack”. My hyper active boy gets super hungry on his way back from school and a hungry little boy makes a cranky little boy. So I send him a little something to tide over the hunger pangs till he can get a solid meal once he is home. Packing healthy fun snacks is always a challenge but thankfully both my boys seem to have a varied palette and enjoy different kinds of food. I got the idea for this energy bar from the brand “Yoga bar” that is available in health stores in India. They have a chocolate and peanut bar which I derived inspiration from. It satisfies the chocoholic in me and my son 🙂
The quantities I mention can be easily doubles or tripled. This is a very forgiving or self correcting recipe 🙂 You can add or substitute the ingredients with all kinds of nuts( walnuts, cashew nuts, almonds), different kinds of seeds ( sunflower, flax, melon etc) use dates or honey instead of jaggery.
Ingredients: Makes 10-12 2″ inch bars
1 cup peanut
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup flax seeds
Vanilla extract 1 tsp
1/2 cup jaggery (add more based on your taste)
1 tbsp good quality cocoa powder
On low heat dry roast the peanuts till they are golden brown in color and you start getting the nutty aroma. Next dry roast the almonds. Dry roast the flax seeds till they start crackling. Dry roasting is the key to getting good tasting energy bars. Make sure you roast them on low flame and take care not to burn the nuts.
Next add all the ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until the mixture comes together. You should be able to make balls which won’t crumble.
Spread the mixture onto a plate and press down with your fingers to even out the surface. Using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, make horizontal and vertical cuts.
Refrigerate for a couple of hours. To get the pieces out, invert the contents onto another plate carefully.
Swat's Cooking 