If you ask me what my favorite snack is, I would have to say my own home-made energy bar. The first time I ever ate an energy bar was when an American friend gave me one as a gift. Back then I wasn’t into fitness so I had zero knowledge about those things. The one he gave me was a small 100g chunk, looking like a hard pressed mass of ingredients, and very dense. On the package there was a picture of a guy climbing rocks. So you know it’s not a common relaxation time snack, but something to eat when you need fuel but don’t have much time.

I definitely need these bars now as I exercise more so I decided to make my own. The only disadvantage is that you have to freeze them and eat them quickly, otherwise if you leave it on the counter for too long, it’s going to be mushy. 🙁 I would have to experiment to find ways to make a drier version. But for now, I really enjoy my fresh energy bar.

Kitchen Gadgets: Food Processor

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• ¾ cup Medjool dates
• ½ cup pomegranate seeds (1/4 of a big promegranate)
• ½ cup flax seed powder
• ½ cup cooked quinoa
• ¼ cup sunflower seeds
• ¼ cup hemp seed powder
• pinch of sea salt

Instructions

1. Remove the core from the dates and chop into small chunks. They might be very sticky.
2. Add all the ingredients into the food processor and process until smooth, or to the texture that you desire.
3. Scoop the mixture into the bar-shaped silicon molds, this fills six 7.6×2.7×3 cm (3×1×1.2 inches) molds.
4. Wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze overnight.
5. Remove the energy bars from the molds and put them into a freezer box or bags, keep them in the freezer and eat directly from the freezer. If it’s too cold for you, you can wait until it reaches room temperature, but don’t wait for too long, otherwise they turn soft and mushy.