Double Chocolate & Peanut Energy Bars
By: Katie Sullivan Morford, Mom's Kitchen Handbook
Ingredients
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup roasted, salted peanuts
½ cup hemp seeds
1/3 cup roasted, salted pepitas
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
6 pitted medjool dates
1/3 cup creamy, salted natural peanut butter
¼ cup honey
¼ cup water
¼ cup dark chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spread the oats on a large baking sheet and toast in the oven for 15 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl.
Put the peanuts in a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse until chopped. Add to the bowl with the oats along with the hemp seeds, pepitas, and cocoa powder. Stir.
Put the dates, peanut butter, honey, and water into the food processor and run until blended, stopping and scraping down the sides as needed until smooth. Add the date mixture to the dry ingredients and use a rubber spatula to stir until evenly blended.
Line an 8x8-inch baking pan with parchment paper, so the parchment drapes over 2 sides. Spoon the dough into the pan and use your hands to press it very firmly into the pan, so that it fills out the entire pan (if the dough sticks to your hands, place a piece of parchment on top of the dough as you press it into the pan).
Put the chocolate chips into a small bowl and microwave on high in 30-second bursts, stirring after each one, until smooth, about 1 ½ minutes. Drizzle the chocolate over the top of the bars. Freeze for 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the freezer, run a knife around the edge and use the two draping sides of parchment to lift it from the pan. Cut into 16 bars.
Store in an air-tight container in the fridge, where they will keep for several weeks.
