Healthy Snacks

Healthy Snacks

This past weekend, my husband and I both went out of town camping. I went to see Brad Paisley and Darius Rucker in Concert with 9 of my best girlfriends

All of us girls before the concert this weekend

Mike went camping with 10 other guys for a friend’s bachelor party.

Mike and his friends camping

Because most of our friends don’t share in our allergies, I wanted to be sure we had healthy, safe snacks and treats for our camping weekend, so we wouldn’t come home feeling miserable! I made quite a few recipes, some turned out some didn’t! So here are a few of our favorite weekend snacks:

Homemade Trail-Mix:

½ Cup Cashews (or nut of your choice)

½ Cup Almonds (or nut of your choice)

¼ Cup Sunflower Seeds

¼ Cup Pumpkin Seeds

¼ Cup Cranberries (or raisins or prunes, ect)

¼ - ½ Cup Dark Chocolate Chunks

Mix together in a large bowl.

Because my nuts and seeds are unsalted, I lightly drizzled my trail mix with honey, then salted the batch. This added great flavor. However if you buy salted nuts, you can skip this step!

Homemade Protein Bars: (Our favorite!!!) (adapted from Passionate Homemaking!)

2 cups almonds
1/4 cup chai seeds (ground in a coffee grinder or blender)
1/2 cup raisins
½ cup unsalted peanut butter
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup coconut oil (melted)
1 Tbsp honey
2-3 teaspoons vanilla extract
a few squares dark chocolate, less than half a bar needed for thin layer (I melted about 1/4 bag of chocolate chips in a small saucepan for the topping)

Place almonds, Chai meal/seeds, dried fruit, peanut butter and salt in a food processor. Pulse briefly for about 10 seconds.

In a small sauce pan, melt coconut oil over very low heat. Remove coconut oil from stove, stir sweeteners and vanilla into oil.

Add coconut oil mixture to food processor and pulse until ingredients form a coarse paste.

Press mixture into an 8 x 8 glass baking dish. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour, until mixture hardens.
In a small saucepan, melt chocolate over very low heat, stirring continuously. Spread melted chocolate over bars; return to refrigerator for 30 minutes, until chocolate hardens.
Remove from refrigerator, cut into bars and serve.

Chewy Granola Bars: (adapted from Heavenly Homemakers)

(Side note: While these are gluten free, my body had a very hard time digesting the oats in these bars. If you have sensitive digestion, this may not be the best snack for you)

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil (or another oil of your choice)
1 ½  cup oats
1 cup total of any combination of:  sesame seeds, coconut flakes, sunflower seeds, dried fruit, mini chocolate chips
In a medium sized saucepan, melt together peanut butter, honey and coconut oil.

Remove from heat and add one cup of oats.  Choose your favorite combination of coconut flakes, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, dried fruit and mini chocolate chips, to equal a total of ONE CUP.  (I just got out my one cup measuring cup and poured in the ingredients until the cup was full.)  Pour in and stir well.

Stir well, then spread mixture into a 8×8 or 9×4 pan.

Chill for two hours, then cut into bars.