Raw Food Energy Bars

Looking back again, I found THIS post and since the ingredients to make these are sitting in my pantry I thought I'd do a recap...this time posting the recipe I forgot to do last time (oops).

Today I made cherry and apple raw bars. Of course, I forgot to take photos today so the above is from when Livi helped me make them over a year ago. It's a pretty basic formula I think

equal parts dates to whichever dried fruit you prefer and about 1 cup of nuts per 3/4 cup date/fruit mix.

Here's what the cherry bars were

2 cups dried cherries
2 cups dates
2 cups WHOLE nuts (I did a mix of almonds, cashews and walnuts because I didn't have enough of any one kind)

I just wing most recipes. For this I chopped the nuts fairly well in the processor but still left some nice chunks. Then removed those and did the dates and cherries together until it made a pastey kinda gob. Took that out, hand mixed them together.Basically, I used as much nuts as I thought looked good in the bars as I mixed so the proportions will vary. Lined a deep sided cookie tray with saran wrap and used that to make the squared sides by pressing the mixture into place.

Apple bars

1 1/4 cup apples (because that's all I had)
1 1/4 cup dates
a dash of cinnamon (I just dumped a little in)
2 cups nuts (I used the remainder of the above mix plus added a bunch of walnuts)

Much the same directions as above; nuts first and remove, dates/apples/cinnamon to paste (I had to add a little water to make it sticky), mix together by hand, used the opposite side of the same cookie sheet to make them square.

Cut into bars and individually wrap in cling stuff. All in all, these took maybe 20 minutes to make and both recipes made approx 15 good sized bars. Happy not-cooking!