“Food – I love nuts. I eat them all the time, they’re easy to carry around, and I am never hungry all day long.” ~ Mehmet Oz
Healthy Nut Bars with Dark Chocolate Drizzle
After the busy holidays with all the shopping, wrapping, visiting, cooking, baking and blogging daily for twelve days, all I wanted to do was sit and reflect. A little TLC was needed too.
As with all new beginnings, the start of a new year is full of potential. When my reflections had me looking back on the latter part of 2013, I realized that several food synchronicities had occurred.
- First, I had been following a program to reduce my intake of fats and refined sugars.
- Second, my daughter was sharing the knowledge acquired by her new employer, a health and wellness advocate.
- Third, a new food co-op opened near me, and I was enthralled with the varieties of organic vegetables, whole grains, spices I knew nothing about and meat that is antibiotic free and grass fed.
- Finally, I received the January issue of Bon Appetit and the front cover described an article entitled, “The New Healthy- It’s Not a Diet It’s A Way of Life…And, Wow Is It Delicious.”
All of these things inspired me to blend the old with the new. In 2014, I look forward to incorporating exciting flavors, more grains and less sugar in my recipes.
These Dark Chocolate Nut Bars are an example of something so delicious you would never guess they are also good for you.
I adapted this recipe from a post by Lindsey Love on Food52. The following ingredient changes were made:
- I used a raw nut blend consisting of almonds, cashews, walnuts, pecans and hazelnuts.
- I substituted puffed kamut for puffed quinoa as I could not find the latter ingredient.
- I used regular chocolate chips rather than dairy free chips.
- An additional tablespoon of honey was needed to make the ingredients stick together.
For a complete list of ingredients and preparation instructions go to Food52.
This bar has no hard to pronounce additives, and it is full of protein and all the good vitamins and minerals provided in nuts.
- Per Bar:
- Calories: 174
- Protein: 3.4g
- Carbohydrates: 10.6g
