Lori/Bennett/Brooke Bars

Happy Birthday, Brooke! For your birthday I'm going to give you a recipe you already have :) I thought I'd post the Lori Bars (homemade powerbar) recipe and then include all my optional add-ins. Then you can do it your own way and call them Brooke Bars (sounds more edible than Stinchfield Bars).

Lori Bars (Lori is the spin teacher/physical therapist from our gym, btw)

1 TB butter

1 c pecans, chopped

1 c almonds, chopped

2/3 c coconut, shredded

1 1/4 c rolled oats

1 1/2 c rice crispies

1 c honey

1/4 c sugar

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 TB cocoa

1 tsp vanilla

Grease 13x9 with butter. On rimmed baking sheet toast pecan, almonds and coconut for 10 min or until coconut is browned. Toss a few times along the way. In large bowl, mix toasted nuts, coconut, oats & cereal. Combine honey, sugar, salt, cocoa & vanilla in small saucepan over med. heat & stir constantly until it comes to a boil & thickens ~ 4 min. Pour syrup mix over dry mix and stir, spread into pan and cool. Cut with pizza cutter.

I change my Bennett Bars each time I make them. First, I always double the recipe. I cut out the sugar and reduced the honey, then added 1 c water to replace that liquid. I've replaced the rice crispies with brown rice flour and I add walnuts & cashews (mixed in the food processor until they become "butter"). I love chia seeds and ground flax seeds so I always add 1/2 c of each if I have them on hand. Someday I want to try a raisin/cinnamon version.

I found a great website, http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php , where you can just enter your ingred. and portion size and they'll tell you all the nutrition info. If anyone knows how I can figure out the cost of each portion please let me know. I'm feeding these to Ruby right now b/c the Dr. says I need to fatten her up. She hates the other "healthy fats" (that's for you Ellynn) that I try to feed her, but she loves Bennett Bars.

{this batch turned out great, if I didn't hate the post office so much I'd mail them to you, as you can see I'm really bad at making straight lines}