[pct-l] Non-Cooked Food - Share Your Recipes!

[linsey]

These homemade bars obviously need to be made in advance, but once on the trail they are no-cook.  I've made nearly 1000 of them and haven't gotten sick of them yet.  When hiking I eat five a day.  

Cereal Bars:  my recipe is an evolution of the High Energy Cereal Bar recipe from "A Fork in the Trail" by Laurie March although enough changes in quantities, technique, and ingredients have been made that I feel okay about passing out this recipe.

1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4+ raw unsalted peanut or almond butter
2 1/2 cups healthy cereal such as Trader Joe's All Bran or any by Heritage       Farms: crushed if flaked.  Look for cereals with the fewest ingredients. 
1/2 cup chopped dried fruit of choice
1/2 cup chopped nuts or seeds
1/3 cup unsweetened carob chips
1/2 teaspoon salt

Lightly oil an eight inch square pan.

Combine cereal, chopped dried fruit, chopped nuts, unsweetened carob chips, and salt--set aside.

In a large pot over medium low heat, combine honey and brown sugar and stir until it just bubbles.  (Too long or too much heat results in a brittle bar.)

Remove from heat and stir in nut butter, quickly.

Add cereal/dry ingredients and mix thoroughly until chips are melted and incorporated.  I use a wooden spatula for this vigorous stirring.  

Press firmly into oiled pan, finishing with the oiled bottom of a mixing cup to really flatten the bars uniformly.

Chill briefly (15 minutes in the freezer), turn out onto cutting board and let come to room temperature before cutting into 10 bars.

Wrap individual bars in 6 inch square unbleached waxed tissue, the kind the bakery's use to grab cookies--available at restaurant supply stores.  Encase in freezer bag and store in the freezer until needed for hiking and/or resupply boxes.  


Some of my favorite combinations are blueberries or sour cherries with almonds and almond butter, Heritage Farms Mesa Sunrise cereal or other corn based flakes with peanut butter and walnuts and cranberries.  Sunflower seeds because they're so inexpensive.  The important thing is to mix it up.

I've used chocolate chips instead of carob, but vastly prefer carob:  it is high fiber but spendy.  Actually many different chips would work but some contain hydrogenated fat. 

Incidentally, the spent waxed tissue makes excellent TP (carry out, don't bury) or emergency firestarter.  White bleached waxed tissue tends to stick to the bars (but is more absorbent as TP), brown unbleached tissue works better.