Energy Bars

I'm a big fan of energy bars.  Actually, energy in general.  I love coffee.  My dad got me a Keurig for Christmas, and I could not be more obsessed.  I honestly use it at least twice a day: hot lemon water right when I wake up (if you don't know the benefits, look here) and then coffee with my breakfast.  I need a boost of energy pretty much every day, even though some would say I have enough without it.

Leiah wanted me to make a post energy bars, so I did some searching to find ones I might like.  I have made these energy balls before which are really good, but I wanted to try another one.

Some of the ingredients are kind of weird, like dates.  I never eat those and where the heck to do I find them?  Luckily, La Crosse has a Co-op and a plethora of people who are, what I like to call, granola crunchers.  Not knocking the whole organic, reusable, recyclable lifestyle, because I need some of these items.  So, shoutout to you people.

Would I love to have my own garden of vegetables, fruits, and herbs and spices? Yes.  But I don't know how to grow anything, not even my hair because I pick my split ends like there's no tomorrow.  Thankfully, I have an aunt and uncle (or my "second parents") that live not far from me that do a lot of this on their own.  My aunt makes everything from scratch with things she grows or what my uncle hunts.  I aspire to do this some day, it's beyond impressive.  When I'm lucky enough, in the summer, they send me home with tons of produce, and I die of happiness.  Also, cage-free eggs because who doesn't have a chicken coop?

You'll notice in a lot of my ingredient photos that I normally have bulk items.  Not like Costco bulk.  Like the "scoop and put it in a plastic bag" bulk.  Honestly, it's really nice because then I get to choose how much I want and not spend $20 on specialty foods that I don't need a lot of.  Chia seeds are EXPENSIVE!  I buy them in bulk and end up spending about $2. Yay! So I recommend buying things this way.  There are tons of different things you can find there.  It amazes me.

What I bought for these bars are practically all from the bulk food section. Here is where I found the recipe, although, I added about 2 TBSP unsweetened coconut.

One note I do have to add: I went to Festival to buy unsweetened coconut and they had 5 different brands of only sweetened.  *this is why I like bulk buying*

I have said bulk far too many times in this post. I am already sick of the word.  Sorry.