M-Bars: Mandy's Energy Bar Recipe

by Mandy Hosford

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I'm not a baker, or a registered dietician, or an experienced concocter of energy foods. However, I modified an oatmeal bar-cookie recipe to come up with these and I think they're full of things that I both like and recognize as food. Plus, Matt ate 'em whilst riding a mountain bike for 142 miles and he didn't go bad. So that's a small experiment, but a good one. Any questions on the recipe...call my friend Shannon. She's the real baker.

Oatmeal bars disguised as performance food. Call 'em what you will....

Mix well until fluffly...

1/4 c veg oil

3/4 c ground flax meal

3/4 c brown sugar or cane sugar

Add the following...

1 egg (If you're vegan, you can leave out the egg. I doubt that it would be catastrophic)

1 1/2 t vanilla

1/2 t salt

Now for the rest...

1 c whole wheat flour

3/4 t baking powder

1/2 c granola (any kind, really) or 1/2 c toasted wheat germ for a slightly lower fat option

3/4 c rolled oats

3/4 c raisins

3/4 c chocolate chips

1/2 c chopped walnuts or pecans or toasted sunflower seeds

*You can pretty much add anything here including ginger pieces, coconut flakes, other nuts, banana chips, other dried fruit, etc...

And now to get it all ready for the oven...

By now it's probably sort of dry so add 1/4 up to 1/2 cups of apple sauce such that it gets moister and can be spread in a greased (non-stick spray or butter) baking dish (I opted for a glass baking dish).

Bake at 375 deg F

Keep em in the oven until the kitchen starts to smell really good and a knife (not a finger) inserted into the center comes out clean. Time in the oven depends on the size of the dish you've used and how thinly the batter's been spread.