Homemade Protein Bars

Somewhere around week six of P90X I  started getting a little bit tired of shelling out the $1.50 or more per bar in order to have vegetarian, high protein energy bars. So I decided to start experimenting with various recipes to see if I could come up with something palatable that was any cheaper. Lucky for me, I tend to like things that are pretty simple and am willing to "acquire a taste" for things as long as they are highly nutritious. So far I've come up with a few recipes. The first, I've been making for myself each week. It yields 2 larger bars, or 3 pleasantly snack sized bars. Total cost for the batch $2.50. And, I know whats in it -- unlike many other bars that hide and obscure their ingredients; only whole and nutritious ingedients here. Specs: 1 bar (1/3 batch) - 150cal, 20g protein, 2g fat, 13g carbohydrates, 2g sugar.

Chocolate PB Protein Bars
1/3 cup Oat Bran
1/6 cup Oat Meal
1 Scoop Whey Protein Crisps (40g)
1 oz AST VP2 Chocolate Whey Protein Powder
2 Tbsp Powdered Peanut Butter
Cold Water (2-3 Tbsp)

1. First Mix all dry ingredients together with a fork until evenly combined.
2. Add 1 Tbsp at a time of water to dry mixture, mixing thoroughly with fork before adding more.
Make sure not to add the third Tbsp of water until you have really mixed everything together, as its better to have a slightly dry mixture, than one that becomes sticky and gooey (thus harder to work with, and never really dries back to a good bar consistency.
3. Lightly spray tin foil or saran wrap with Pam or vegetable oil.
4. Spoon mixture onto foil/saran either in two larger or three smaller blobs.
5. Fold foil/saran over mixture and press down firmly to create bars of your preferred shape.
6. At this point, if you are hungry you can go ahead and enjoy. I find that if you refrigerate them for a few hours they firm up even more (which I prefer).
Bars will keep for at least a week (likely longer, although no batch has made it that long in my house) in the fridge.

The second recipe (preferred by my husband), substitutes real Peanut Butter (all natural, smooth) for the powdered PB. No doubt, it gives a richer flavor and slightly improved mouth feel: adds 150cal, 10g of fat to the entire batch.


Enjoy!!

links to Whey Crisps and Powdered PB below:
http://www.netrition.com/bpt_whey_protein_crisps.html
http://www.netrition.com/bell_plantation_pb2.html

(at some point I'll provide pretty pictures of all these things but for now my camera needs charging...)