Living Paleo Snack Bars

Prep time: 20 min • Cook time: 10-12 min • Yield: Approximately 24-25 bars, 2- x 3-inch bars

Ingredients

• 1 cup raw cashews
• 1 cup raw pistachios
• 1 cup raw almonds
• 1 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 1 cup raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
• 1 cup dried apricots
• ½ cup ground flax seed meal
• 2 cups large flake unsweetened coconut
• 1 cup dried unsweetened cranberries
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips (i.e. Enjoy Life brand)
• 2/3 cup butter made from pasture-raised cows or ghee
• ¾ cup raw honey
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons salt (see notes)

Equipment

• Jelly roll pan 14 ¾-inch x 9 ¾ -inch
• Parchment paper
• Food processor

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees  and place rack in the center of the oven.
2. Line pan with parchment paper.
3. Into a large bowl, measure all 3 types of nuts and 2 seeds and mix well.
4. Measure out 2 ½ cups and roughly chop.
5. Put the remaining 2 ½ cups into the food processor and pulse into smaller pieces than those already chopped. You want to have varying sizes of nuts and seeds for the bars, thus half are hand chopped to produce bigger pieces, and half are processed in the food processor to create smaller pieces.
6. Recombine all nuts and seeds into bowl.
7. Add apricots to food processor and pulse to a rough chop. Add to bowl of nuts.
8. Add ground flax, coconut, cranberries and chocolate chips and mix well.
9. In a small saucepan mix butter and honey and bring to a boil on medium heat. Cook stirring constantly for 1-2 minutes. Add vanilla. If using salt, add to honey mixture.
10. Pour warm honey mixture into the bowl of ingredients and mix well.
11. Press evenly onto the parchment-lined pan. Cover with another piece parchment and press very firmly to flatten mixture.
12. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. Watch carefully because nuts and coconut get toasty and brown very quickly.
13. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate overnight before cutting.

Tips and Notes If you can’t find all raw nuts and seeds, you can use some that are already roasted. If some are salted, omit the salt. If you prefer a different combination of nuts, use what you like. This combination happens to be my personal favorite. Here’s a good tip for pressing down the mixture into the pan. After you have evened out the mixture, covered it, and flattened it as well as you can with your hands, use a can as a rolling pin to compress the mixture even more.