Chewy Date and Seed Bars

I’m a snacker. Even an hour after lunch, my mouth already itches for food. It's not that I don't eat much, but I usually stop eating once my belly feels comfortably full. Before, I could eat till I felt the desperate urge to unbutton my jeans while seething for eating the last few dumplings on my plate, but I’ve practiced keeping my gluttony under control and just eat until I’ve had enough. At work, I always had a steady stash of things to nibble on, you will find my drawer spilling out fruit, polka-dotted bananas, rice crackers, raisin cookies, a Ziploc bag full of Cherrios, dark chocolate with sea salt, and when I get sick of my cereal, shiny packets of granola bars. 

I’m partial to Nature Valley crunchy granola bars, they got the right amount of crunch, there’s no metallic taste lingering on my tongue afterwards, it’s somewhat filling (depending on how hungry I am), and most importantly, they aren’t too sweet. Snacks to me, should hinge somewhere between substantial and a treat. These chewy date bars do the job, they make a good pick-me up in the afternoons when I’m ready to zonk out after lunch. 

Tweaked from the LCBO Food and Drink magazine, these chewy date and seed bars can be made in less than 20 minutes and ready to be eat in less than an hour. Basically, dates are simmered with water and added to the dry mixture to give a stickiness sweetness, oats and oat flour give the bars bulk and provide the ultimate nutritional benefits like fibre, nuts and seeds are mixed in for plenty of crunch, protein and healthy fats. Finally, toasted coconut and brown sugar are tossed in to add more flavour to the bars.

Although there are over seven ingredients, the beauty of this recipe is its flexible formula, you can use whatever you have lying in your pantry or head to your local bulk foods store to pick up what you need, as long as you keep the general ratio of oats, dried fruit, and nuts and seeds the same.

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Almond Coconut Granola

There was a time when I was fervently passionate about my profession. I went to school to be a dietitian*, moved to Toronto, but particular circumstances has slashed my love for nutrition. Some days I feel like it's wringing out all my juices, till nothing but the bitter peel is left, even the pulp is a pile of mush lying neglected and tasteless.

Some days, I just want to throw up my arms in the air and call it quits, discard the title that took me 6 years to achieve. Self doubt kicks in, I wonder whether I am really destined to be a dietitian, then, I wallow at my misfortune that seems to have parked a permanent spot in my life.

But yesterday my dad said something to me that put things in perspective. I'm in my early twenties, this is merely but a minor bump in the road, a small hurdle in my career, I am still a dietitian, I need to be positive and find a way over that towering stone wall. Which is true. So true, sometimes I just need a reminder that my life isn't over. It's also a reminder that my parents are very wise and I love them so.

So to make the world a better place and to numb my cocktail mix of emotions, I made granola.

There's been a nip in the air lately. I grudgingly watched the sun cast a blood red sky across the horizon by 7pm instead of 9pm. Even the leaves have started to shed their emerald green colors in exchange for gold and rusty shades. Folks, autumn is upon us and granola is a brilliant way to welcome the new season.

Store-bought granola, to me, is overly sweet or laden with ingredients that you can't pronounce, but this recipe, from Leite's Culinaria is a just the remedy to satisfy that breakfast crunch.

There's cinnamon and coconut to give the granola flavor and aroma. Roasted almonds are crucial, providing a much needed crisp in each mouthful, I added sunflower seeds to amp up the nuttiness. And finally, dried fruits are a must, they add contrast to the otherwise tedious noshing of hard ingredients. I tweaked the recipe by using less sugar, confident that the quarter cup of honey will suffice.



My favorite kind of recipes are the ones you can easily adjust to suit your tastes or whatever is sitting in your pantry. If you, like me, wanted to make exotic granola using crystallized ginger, but they suddenly disappeared because you used them for this and couldn't help but suck on them as a snack, wincing in its spicy heat, you can use other dried fruits. I used dried blueberries, which aren't my favorite, but dried apricots, raisins, and cranberries would be excellent choices.

I had a generous cup of granola with an equally generous amount of yogurt for breakfast, and I must say, even with the early arrival of fall, I think I'll be ok, as long as I have this to keep me satisfied.

*Disclaimer alert! I am a registered dietitian, but this site was created as a space for me to showcase my love for food and photography and occasionally, lament about life, it is not intended as nutritional advice.

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Recipe here!