Fresh Food On the Go - Like on the Bike!

Looking to eat “clean” and carry fresh food on your next bike ride? The Feed Zone Cookbook: Fast and Flavorful Food for Athletes, offers many fresh food ideas for the bike but here is one I use and love from my great friend Sherry. These granola bars are a great option! Sometimes I eat these for breakfast and sometimes after a workout. I use this as a dessert when I’m seeking something sweet too! And I can handle the cooking part of this! It’s mostly just mixing! You could really cut this recipe in half and have plenty!

Shown here without heating the ingredients and
without chocolate - one of the options in making this

No-Fuss, No-Bake Granola Bars

Ingredients:

½ cup Tahini – (paste made from ground sesame seeds) - you can buy this fresh in a refrigerated case or in a jar (you can buy a smaller portion refrigerated and it will cost less)

½ cup sunflower seed butter (or almond butter or natural peanut butter)

2 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup honey (wild flower)

¾ bar of 85% Green and Black Organic Dark Chocolate (sometimes I make it without this so it is not necessary – I still think it tastes GREAT without the chocolate believe it or not!); or chocolate chips

1 cup currants

¼ teaspoon salt

4 cups puffed rice or whole wheat puffed cereal

1 cup toasted or untoasted pumpkin seeds (tastes fine if you don’t toast them)

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Grocery stores like Krogers have most of these ingredients. You can also visit a whole foods store like the Roanoke Natural Foods Co-Op where you will find the currants and pumpkin seeds in the bulk foods section.

While this seems like an overwhelming number of ingredients, what you buy should be enough to use several times.

Use a 9 x 13 glass dish or several smaller glass dishes (round or square) and swipe with butter.

In a saucepan over low heat:

Combine the tahini, butter, vanilla, honey, chocolate (separate the pieces of the bar), salt, and currants. Heat until the chocolate melts.

Wet Ingredients to be heated 

In a separate large mixing bowl:

Stir together the cereal, pumpkin seeds, and 2/3 cup of coconut.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. 

Mix of dry and wet ingredients

Spread in your dish(es) and sprinkle with coconut.

And, yes, I admit it. I have tried this without heating up the ingredients (when I do not add chocolate) and it tasted fine and stuck together! So, hey, if it is a time saver - I am all for it! I'm betting you could stir in some chocolate chips without heating the ingredients and it would stick and be fine! Below I have the "microwave recipe" which is even quicker!!

Place in the refrigerator for one hour. Voila! Cut them and wrap them for on the go! No baking involved! Happy Biking and Eating!
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Time strapped and not anti-microwave?? Put the wet ingredient mix into a microwavable bowl and heat for about a minute.

Wet Ingredients - Shown here with the chocolate

Heated up SUPER QUICK in the microwave!

Mix your wet ingredients with the dry ones.

Showing the wet and dry mixed together - with chocolate

Pour into a bowl and cool in the refrigerator for one hour.

VOILA!