Power Up

Behold the main reason I went to Rainbow Grocery last week. I wanted to get all of the ingredients for Heidi Swanson's Power Bars recipe, a recipe I have been wanting to make for years, but have never bothered to attempt because it's too hard to find all of those ingredients at just one store - Rainbow is the only place where I would be guaranteed to hit everything on my list. Well, it was totally worth it. These are delicious bars, very similar in texture to a sweet, sticky rice crispie treat, and just as enjoyable, without any of the guilt. I think it would be easy to make substitutions, too - dried cherry and pistachio, apricot and pecan - you could go on and on.

One suggestion that I would make is not to make them in the 9 X 13 pan - that was how I made them the first time, and while delicious, they were much too "loose", totally falling apart at the touch and not really bars. Go for the 8 X 8 size. But other than that, a great recipe.

DO-IT-YOURSELF POWER BARS
- makes 16 to 24 bars -

Ingredients
1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 1/4 cups rolled oats

1 1/4 cups chopped toasted walnuts

1/2 cup oat bran

1 1/2 cups unsweetened crisp brown rice cereal

1 cup dried cranberries, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger

1 cup brown rice syrup*

1/2 cup natural cane sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

Procedure
1. Grease a baking pan with the coconut oil. If you like thick power bars, opt for an 8 by 8-inch pan; for thinner bars, use a 9 by 13-inch pan.

2. Mix the oats, walnuts, oat bran, cereal, cranberries, and ginger together in a large bowl and set aside.

3. Combine the rice syrup, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly as it comes to a boil and thickens just a bit, about 4 minutes. Pour over the oat mixture and stir until the syrup is evenly incorporated.

4. Spread into the prepared pan and cool to room temperature before cutting into whatever size bars you desire.

*The second time I made these bars, I decreased the brown rice syrup to 2/3 cup and it was far less gooey and easier to manage.