Homemade Larabars

I was suppose to post this a few days ago, but what can I say. I'm a busy women!!

So my MIL found some really great bars at Sam's club and got excited and had to tell me about them. You see, they are all natural foods, and my daughter with all the allergies can have them. I admit, they are pretty good, but they are also pretty expensive, even at Sam's Club. So my SIL decided to do some research and found some recipes online. There are many sites about making homemade Larabars. This one is my favorite:

http://enlightenedcooking.blogspot.com/2008/02/home-made-lara-bars-energy-bars-part-3.html

The basic idea is it's all a mixture of nuts and dried fruit. You can add spices to add more flavor. The basic proportion is 1/2 c dried fruit to 1/3 c. nuts.

Of course I LOVE creative recipes, and had to experiment. I bought a variety of nuts and fruit and tried a few. The first priority was to use up some prunes I had. So I made some Mixed berry and peanut ones

5 prunes (1/4 c.)
1/4 c. Mixed berries N Cherries
1/3 c. Peanuts.

They tasted pretty good, so we chilled them for later.

The second ones I made were even BETTER (I did some tastes test with friends lol)

3 prunes (all I had left)
1/3 c cherries (basically just enough to make 1/2 c. of fruit)
2/3 c. Cinn. Roasted Almonds (I did more than the 1/3 c, since the cinn and crunchy outside took up more space than just plain almonds)

These were the favorite. They were really yummy.

I found some dried apples and am going to try some apple pie flavored ones, I will add some cinn and maybe cashews?? I'm not sure which nut. My SIL did some with peanuts and cherries and they taste JUST like PB&J.. If you can't find some dried fruit, you can always dry them yourself. That way you won't have the extra sugar they add to the store ones too. SO to make it simple, here's the steps.

1. find some dried fruits and nuts

2. In your food processor (my SIL used her meat grinder) process the fruit first. Till it's mush. Remove the clump, but don't scrap the blades or bowl. Put the fruit aside in a bowl.

3. Process the nuts, till crushed into small pieces. Add any spices you wish to the nuts.

4. Mix the two parts together

5. form into balls, or small bars.

6. Chill in the fridge or freezer. I just put them in a Ziploc bag I labeled. But you can wrap them individually if you want.

7. ENJOY!! and don't forget to write down what you did, so you can make the same ones again lol!

A few more variations we rolled around in our heads but haven't tired:

Add some choc chips or baking cocoa
roll them in powdered sugar to make them less sticky (all though they really are not that sticky)
Use some oatmeal

Don't forget to share what you've tried.