Not the Worst Protein Bars

As you may know, I'm preparing to go on a pretty big hike--that's why the dehydrator has played a big role in my productivity in the last few months, and why I found myself purchasing two big tubs of protein powder, something you would normally never find in my pantry.  I've never really understood why you have to get something from a powder when it's already in plenty of real foods, like good old meat and good old beans, and, as the subway ads say these days, a handful of peanuts.  Why slurp down a kind of strange tasting protein shake when you could just, I don't know, eat some nuts?  Oooo, or crunchy roasted chickpeas!

Well, one reason you might want protein in a powder is if you're going to be hiking through the woods for weeks and weeks, carrying a thirty-pound pack fifteen miles a day.  I'm already going to be carrying a big bag full of gorp (which, of course, stands for Good Old Raisins and Peanuts), and there will be meat in every dinner, and sometimes even beans, but I need all the extra energy I can get.  So at snack time, there will be protein bars.  Homemade protein bars.

Using my two tubs of powder (one whey, one hemp), I made a bunch of different recipes, and, well, they came out okay each time.  I haven't thrown any away or anything.  They're all vacuum-sealed, ready to be packed away in our mail-drop boxes.  They've received good reviews from some friends who have tasted them, in fact, really good reviews, but then there was the one review that was just, "Well, it tastes like a protein bar."

It's true.  It's not that they are bad, they just...they taste like protein bars.  But what did I expect from something that is just a big mess of oats, peanut butter, applesauce, honey, and weird-tasting protein powder?  So, once I got my hands dirty following this recipe, I decided to make it my own by adding some actual sugar.  I can't exactly argue that sugar never killed anyone, but I can say that sugar is not the enemy, and in the case of backpacking 1,300 miles, sugar is most definitely my friend.  It goes hand in hand with protein.

After closely studying almost every granola bar recipe on the internet, I combined them to make this monster, which I am calling:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Whey Protein Bars

aka Not the Worst

1/2 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy)

1/3 cup honey

1/2 cup applesauce

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup cocoa powder (Wait wait wait, I didn't write it down at the time, and now I can't remember if I used 1/4 cup or 1/2 cup, so all I can do is advise you to do what makes sense to you.)

1 cup protein powder (I used French Vanilla flavored whey protein, which is probably why it tasted so weird.  I would try flavorless if I were you.)

3 cups rolled oats

2/3 cup wheat germ

1 cup chocolate chips

1-ish cup rice cereal (or not, if you think the texture would be weird.  I think it was okay.)  (Also I'm sorry this recipe is a disaster so far.)

other things you might want to throw in there, like nuts and seeds and things

Combine sugar, peanut butter, honey, applesauce, and vanilla in a bowl and mix well.  Stir in cocoa powder until combined and then stir in protein powder.  By now you should have a fairly thick brown goop.

Now, why not throw in some flax seeds?

I never know how much flax to put in things, so I just go with a handful.  Now stir in oats and wheat germ, chocolate chips, rice cereal if you so desire, nuts, bolts, kitchen sinks, whatever you think should be in these crazy bars.  Of course, you can't add in too much dry stuff without changing the amount of wet stuff.  So be careful.  I just stuck with the flax seeds and rice cereal for my optional ingredient.

Roll the goop out on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper.  Here is the best way to do this, invented by none other than my favorite hiking partner (the guy who is carrying the four-pound tent):

I love parchment paper so much, I should, I don't know, write it an ode or something...

Anyway, these get baked at 350 degrees until they get nice.  About 15 minutes, probably.  Then they cool, then they get cut into neat little bars.  And guess what?  They are not the worst!

Okay, obviously I wouldn't have gone through all the trouble to take those pictures and write up this recipe if I thought these actually sucked.  I realize that it sounds like I hate them.  I don't.  I think they taste better than a lot of those expensive store-bought protein bars out there, and they have ingredients I can actually pronounce, which is a plus.  And I think they are going to do the job--that is, keeping my tummy full on the trail.

Now I will share the recipe for the ones I made with hemp protein.  I was halfway through the recipe when I opened up the tub of powder for the first time and realized it was green.  Again, what did I expect?  So the bars came out kind of green, but I liked it, because they kind of ended up looking like those bars whose names contain words like Paleo.  Whatever that is.

One thing that you'll need to know for this recipe is that the egg substitute that I used is as follows: two tablespoons water, one tablespoon oil, and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, all beaten together.  I wonder if this is even needed--maybe I could have just added a bit more applesauce and honey--but it seemed fun so I tried it. 

The Ones with Hemp Protein

aka The Best

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup applesauce

1/2 cup honey

1 egg substitute

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup hemp protein powder

1/2 cup wheat germ

2 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup flour (because my dough seemed too sticky, I added about this much whole wheat)

1/2 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup raisins

1/2 cup any kind of nuts you want

Combine the brown sugar, applesauce, honey, egg substitute, and vanilla, then stir in the protein powder until combined.  Then you can add the rest of your dry ingredients.  This is almost exactly like that other recipe and I don't feel like typing it all out.  350 degrees, these seemed to need to bake a little longer.

And they tasted great!  I think it was because I was moving away from the chocolatey sweet recipes and into the fruit and nut side of things.  The raisins pair very well with the hemp, and I used peanuts and chocolate chips just because that's like, classic granola bar.  And because that's what I had in the cupboard.

My protein powder is all used up now, all two pounds of it, and I have many neat little packages of bars ready to be mailed to various post offices in Appalachia.  And when I feel a little peckish after hiking a few miles in the sweet sweet quiet of the woods, I'll sit down on a rock and pull out a protein bar--maybe a chocolate one, maybe one with hemp, maybe one of those pumpkin ones I made a while back--and I'll let it replenish my energy.  And what I'll probably be thinking, even if it's the batch of hemp ones where I forgot the vanilla, what I'll most likely be thinking is, this is the best.