Puffed Quinoa Snack Bars

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be sent a mystery box of ingredients from Food Compass, an online food shopping website with lots of great products (I actually bought some really interesting looking pasta that I am looking forward to trying and I have fallen in love with Cogo Bites – they are soooo yummy!).  In the box I received was puffed quinoa, LSA powder and coconut nectar syrup – all products I hadn’t tried out before, so I decided to use them all together in these snack bars.

I love home made muesli bars and the these Puffed Quinoa Snack Bars are a delish option to add in to the mix (I’ll link our other great muesli bar recipes at the bottom of this post – check them out for other ingredient ideas).  They are held together with honey, so they are best kept in the fridge, as they fall apart a bit if kept at room temperature.  Make them using whatever you have on hand – if you don’t have a certain ingredient, swap it out for something else.  There’s no baking either, just throw everything together and you’re done.  Easy.

Ingredients:
½ cup shredded coconut
1 cup puffed quinoa
2 tablespoons chia seeds
½ almond meal
½ cup pumpkin seeds
½ cup sunflower seeds
2 tablespoons LSA powder
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon almond essence
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon coconut nectar syrup (or try golden syrup)
½ cup liquid honey

Method:
Grease and line a 20cm x 20cm square tin. 
Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Add the wet ingredients and mix to combine. 
Press into the prepared tin.  Refrigerate for at least 3 hours before cutting into squares and serving.  Store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

Other great Muesli Bar recipes:

• Easy Muesli Bars
• White Chocolate and Cranberry Muesli Bars
• Chocolate Muesli Bars
• Oaty Banana Nut Bars

Banana, Bran and Walnut Muffins

I was really surprised by these muffins.  I think of bran muffins as boring little rock cakes – a dense lump and not at all appealing.  But, in an effort to make something not so sweet and a tad more healthy, I gave some a go.  The surprising part is that I love the result.  You can taste the bran a bit, but the banana flavour is there, stopping the muffins from being bland, and in every mouthful you get some slightly crunchy walnut bits.  The thing that surprised me the most is that the muffins still have that crumbly cake texture that I thought I was going to sadly be missing.  I am really happy with these muffins;  I don’t feel guilty eating one for morning tea (or breakfast – I’m writing this post before having breakfast and trying to describe the muffins talked my brain into making me go get one!), they are soft, moist and have a cakey texture, and they have the perfect banana flavour.  Oh, and I made them so they are a simple beat the wet ingredients together, mix through the dry ingredients, pour them in the tins and back recipe.  Really quick. 
I was going to mix through some Chia seeds but completely forgot, so if you try that addition (a couple of tablespoons maybe?) let me know how they go.  I now have bran in the cupboard so I’m going to be experimenting with more recipes soon!

Makes 12.

Ingredients:
1 cup mashed banana
2 tablespoons oil (vegetable, sunflower or canola)
2 eggs
100g butter, melted
½ cup milk
1 cup bran
½ cup sugar
1 cup flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup chopped walnuts

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200°C.  Grease or line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin papers.
In a large bowl, beat together all the wet ingredients (the banana down to the milk on the list).  Add in the dry ingredients, excluding the walnuts, and mix through to make a smooth batter.  Fold through the walnut pieces.
Divide the mixture between the prepared muffin tin holes and bake for 10 – 15 minutes, or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin can be removed cleanly.
Remove from the oven and leave standing in the tin for 5 minutes, before removing and placing on a wire rack to cool completely.

Oaty Banana Nut Bars

I’ve been experimenting with muesli bars this weekend (so expect another muesli bar recipe soon).  These Oaty Banana Nut Bars are a bit of a twist on your traditional muesli bar.  They are a super quick snack idea which would make a great addition to school lunchboxes.  Instead of the muesli being held together with honey and the like, a mix of peanut butter and mashed banana is used.  the result is a soft cake-like bar.  They remind me of Banana Cranberry Cookies I made a while back.
To speed things up, I used my food processor to prepare most of the ingredients I was using.  I also used pre-mixed nuts out of the bulk bin at my local supermarket.  You can use an assortment of your favourite nuts, it’s totally up to you.

Ingredients:
1 cup mixed nuts
½ cup pretzels
1 ½ cups oats
¼ cup chocolate chips
4 bananas
1 cup peanut butter

Method:
Preheat your oven to 180°C.  Grease and line a 16 x 26cm tin. 
Place the nuts and pretzels into a food processor and process for a few seconds to roughly chop them up (alternatively you could chop them with a knife).  Place in a medium sized bowl and mix through the oats and chocolate chips.
Place the bananas in the food processor and process until smooth (alternatively you can use a fork to mash them).  Pour the banana into a microwave safe bowl.  Add the peanut butter to the banana.  Microwave the banana for 1 minute on high, remove from the microwave and stir the mix thoroughly for 1 to 2 minutes.
Mix the banana mixture through the oat mixture.  Press the mixture evenly into the prepared tin.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top of the mixture is golden brown.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin before cutting into bars to serve.  Store in an airtight container.

After some more muesli bar recipes?  Check out our White Chocolate and Cranberry Muesli Bar and our Chocolate Muesli Bar recipes – they are delish!  Also, I got the cute bakers twine that I tied around these bars from The Pretty Baker.