Day 73: making my own Larabars

Since I've been craving sweet and trying to avoid copious amounts of sugar, I decided to make something with dates in it. I think I could just sit and eat a whole bag of dates, but that wouldn't be a great idea. Here's what I started out with:

Works best with a good food processor

The coconut flakes are sweetened with sugar, but I didn't want to go searching fore the healthier, more expensive kind-so I stuck with the cheap ones from Aldi. Actually, all of these ingredients are from Aldi. Not organic or anything like that, but I did make it all myself!

After mixing all the ingredients (I looked online at different versions) the consistency was more like granola-I needed something to help it stick. I'd read on one site to use olive oil, but olive oil in something sweet sounded gross-so I added a tablespoon of butter instead. It did the trick! I spread out my sticky mess in a plastic-lined pan and put it in the fridge:

What I thought about doing was cutting these up and wrapping them individually in plastic wrap once they got cold. However, I think I'm just going to cut out a piece at a time and eat it. less mess and work. Here's my piece:

Now, I'm not usually a fan of coconut, but it tasted really yummy with the dates, raisins, and walnuts! I now have my candy bar alternative :)