Breakfast on the Go

I recently made this recipe for one of my clients who always encourages me to try new things. She likes to participate in the cooking process so she can learn how to make things herself, and because she is concerned about her cholesterol, she asked me to help her come up with some high-protein breakfast alternatives that don’t include eggs or cheese.

These energy bars seemed like the perfect solution. The recipe below is an adaptation of one that I found in the June 2010 issue of Food and Wine magazine.

Energy Bars
Makes 12 bars
1 cup flake cereal
1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup roasted almonds
1/2 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup almond butter
8 dried figs, stemmed and quartered
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1 tablespoon canola oil
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 cup dried blueberries
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a food processor, pulse the cereal flakes, walnuts, almonds, agave nectar, almond butter, figs, flax seeds, canola oil and lemon zest until coarsely chopped. Add the blueberries and coconut and pulse just until they are evenly distributed throughout the mixture.

Scrape the mixture into a large bowl and stir well. Form the mixture into a ball and press into a flat circle, about 1-inch thick. Cut the round into 12 equal wedges, and shape each into a 1/2-inch-thick bar, then place on the prepared baking sheet, about 1 inch apart. Bake for 25 minutes, or until edges are browned. Let the bars cool completely on the baking sheet before serving or moving to a storage container.

Store the bars in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Note: The original recipe called for kamut flakes, but we weren’t able to find them at Whole Foods, so we substituted a flax-multibran flake cereal. I plan to try this with other types of flake cereal, and encourage you to do the same. (Please send me a note and let me know if you use one that works particularly well so I can share it with other readers.)

Tina’s Tip: We made two versions of this recipe, one with the ingredients listed above, the other with dried apricots instead of figs. It would probably work equally well with other dried fruits such as dates, dried cherries and/or raisins.