I cooked all day

I guess since I spent such a nice Mother's Day with my Mom, and getting our camper camp worthy, I had to do some penance the next day. 

Not really, I do enjoy cooking.  But, I tend to overdo it.  I guess that is like all things I do with food. (Insight gained)

Sunday I cooked, and cooked, and baked and dehydrated and cleaned and boiled and mashed (I think that is all).

I tried out a new recipe from http://marmaladeandmileposts.com/  for Cranberry Almond Protein Bars. 

I thought I had Almond butter in the pantry when I went shopping but it turned out all I had was organic Peanut Butter.  Close enough in my book.

Here is the link to the original recipe

http://marmaladeandmileposts.com/archives/24202

Cranberry Almond Protein Bars

Author: Carrie Brown | www.carriebrown.com

Prep time:  30 mins

Cook time:  12 hours

Total time:  12 hours 30 mins

Serves: 10

Ingredients

• ½ cup / 4 fl oz. almond butter, creamy unsalted (I used organic Peanut Butter)
• ¼ tsp almond extract
• ⅓ cup / 3 fl oz. COLD water
• 11 oz. / 310g vanilla whey protein powder (I used rice protein, more on this later)
• 1 TBSP chia seeds
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp guar gum
• 1½ oz. / 40g flaked almonds
• 2 oz. / 55g dried cranberries, finely chopped

Instructions

1. In a bowl, using a hand mixer or blender, mix the almond butter, almond extract and cold water together until completely mixed. This takes several minutes.
2. In another bowl, add the whey powder, salt, guar gum, and chia seeds and mix well.
3. Crush the flaked almonds in your hands and add them to the dry ingredients.
4. Add the finely chopped dried cranberries and rub them through the dry ingredients with your fingers to separate them.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the almond butter mixture and stir until it has formed a dry dough.
6. Turn the dough on to a surface and knead the last of the dry ingredients in until you have a smooth, shiny dough. It will be slightly sticky.
7. Wrap the dough in plastic and leave to rest for an hour.
8. Roll the dough out to ¼ inch thick and cut into bars.
9. You will need to use a sharp knife to slide under each bar to get them off the surface you rolled them out on.
10. Carefully move each bar to a flat plate or board.
11. Leave the bars to dry for 12 hours. Every 30 minutes or so, using a sharp knife to pick them up, turn each bar over. This helps the bars to dry evenly.
12. After 12 hours the bars will have firmed up considerably and formed a 'crust', making them easy to pick up with your fingers.
13. Wrap each bar in parchment paper or store in an air-tight container with parchment paper between the layers.

I followed the instructions, using peanut butter for almond butter pretty much to the letter until I got to the protein powder (I know, WOW, all the way to step two!).  I have been working with a nutritionist and she has taken me off dairy and as I was about to scoop 310g of my tasty delicious Pea protein powder into the bowl on the scale I realized something.  That was a lot of powder and I paid a lot of money for this Pea Protein, and most importantly I like the taste of it.  I had a three pound jar of Rice Protein sitting on the counter mocking me with it's grittiness and lack of flavor and I decided right then and there that I was going to alter the recipe further.  I grabbed that silly Rice Protein and put it in the pot.  I added some vanilla extract and four packets of stevia (note to self and others attempting to replicate this, try 6-8 packets next time).

Gritty, but useful.

At $20 per pound, I just
couldn't see cooking with
this when there were
alternatives available.

Then I made it all the way to step five.  The dry ingredients just were too much for my meager wet ingredients, so I slowly started adding more water, and more water, and more water.  A whole extra cup of water actually when it came down to it.  Then it rested (but I didn't, I made two meatloaves while this rested).

Shhh! It is resting

I rolled the dough out on parchment paper with plastic wrap over it to avoid sullying my grandmothers wonderful rolling pin and cut them and laid them out as instructed.

I tried to turn them every half hour, I really did, but alas, it was not to be.  So I looked to my handy dandy food dehydrator for help, and by the end of the night I had dried, wonderfully crispy bars.  I let them sit out overnight because I was too lazy to do anything else with them.  

Then next morning though I wrapped them in parchment paper and then put them in a zip-top bag.

In their dehydrated deliciousness.

I tried my first one at work the next day when I was too busy for a sit down lunch, and they were a little dull tasting.  They could have used a little more salt too. But, very filling.  I thankfully though have no desire to binge on them the way they are now.  Maybe when I perfect the recipe but they are so filling, I thing three would cause me physical pain.

The rest of the day was a blur of salad prepping, Swiss Chard sauteing, potato and green bean boiling, cookie baking and veggie roasting.  I loved it all!