Chocolate Date Bars – no cook

My lovely hubby and I used to be pretty avid campers/hikers/paddlers.  We have both worked for and volunteered for many outdoor clubs and organizations all through college.  But something happened.  Oh yeah, we got jobs, bought a house and slowly but surely we slid into not very avid campers.  I am very ashamed to admit that we have never taken our little girl camping (at least not real camping).  We seem to always have an excuse or other activity happening.  But not anymore, we just bought a tent that ALL of us can sleep in together!  Dave and I are in the search for new sleeping bags and we are going through all of our old camping gear to see what still works and what has deteriorated beyond repair.  I am excited to get to REI aka outdoor geek heaven, to see what new fangled gear is out there for family style camping!

In the meantime I am knee deep into camping and dehydrating cookbooks.  I couldn’t resist, if you live in my area and can’t find any of these books at the library, you can blame me, I have all of them.

Needless to say you will be seeing some of my experimenting on the blog!

One of our favorite little bars, the Lara Bar, is such a versatile easy thing to replicate.  Here is a favorite flavor combo.

 Choco-Coco-Date Bars

3 Tbls chia seeds (you can use ground flax seed, but it will change the flavor a little)

1 cup dried coconut flakes (not desicated!! or sweetened)

1 cup almond meal (or 1 1/2 cups almonds ground up)

2 Tbls cocoa powder

1/2 tsp vanilla

12 softened dates (add more if you want it sweeter – but you may have to add more almond meal to balance the moisture)

dash of salt

Start with the dried ingredients in the food pro and whiz away till  ground to your texture liking –

Then add the dates a few at a time – you may have to scrape down the sides a couple of times

Scoop into a lined pan or just roll into balls

The consistency will be a little sticky but the chia seeds will slowly soak some of that moisture up.

Ingredients – almond meal, chia seeds, dates, vanilla, coconut, cocoa powder, salt

Oops sideways! Can’t seem to figure this one out!
Anyhow here are the chia seeds and the coconut in the food pro, I like to really process the coconut alot, it lets out some of its lovely oils

here it all is ground and smushed and scraped up together – taste it to see if you need more sweetness or less

press it into a baking dish then refrigerate
or make into balls and refrigerate
the chia seeds will soak up some of the stickiness as they sit, but by all means eat them right away all lovely and sticky too!!

here it is cut up and professional looking! I like to cut them and wrap them in parchment for clean transporting in lunches or gym bags or CAMPING!!!!