Scrumptious Saturday: Peanut Date Bars

Peanut Date Bars

1 cup of dates, pitted

1 cup of dry roasted peanuts

pinch of salt

add-ins: 1/3 cup of raisins, craisins, dried apricots, etc.

This recipe is so simple to make if you have a food processor, just throw everything in and mix, mix, mix away!  It does take some time to produce a nice mixture, but you'll know when you're there because the mixture will become sticky and clump together.

Once everything is mixed together, transfer the mixture onto one end of a long piece of plastic wrap and fold the other end back over to cover the mixture (this keeps your fingers from getting sticky when you move on to the next step).  Press the mixture into a rectangle shape that's about 1/2" thick and then use a knife or pizza cutter to cut the rectangle into 5 or 6 bars.  Wrap each bar in plastic wrap and store them in the fridge (this helps the bars keep their shape and stay solid).  You could probably add in some protein powder if you really wanted to, however these bars are pretty filling on their own.

I bought about a pound of whole dates and pitted them myself, it's pretty much the cheapest way to go around here.  I used roughly half a pound of dry, roasted peanuts in this recipe.  I also added in some raisins that I had in my cupboard - you could also use any kind of dried fruit you like, or just omit the add-ins all together and stick with the dates and peanuts. 

I already had peanuts in my cupboard, so all I purchased to make these snack bars were the dates.  My total was about $5.60 to make 10 bars, about $.56 each.  I would suggest looking around for the best deal on the ingredients however, sometimes warehouse type stores have better deals on dates and peanuts than stores like Wegmans, so it's worth looking around.