Paleo Granola

I have been on the search for Paleo, quick grab snacks for myself and my family.  We often times get caught up running errands and end up eating at a fast food restaurant to hold us until we get home.  Not only is it horrible, greasy, processed food, it's expensive!  So I stumbled upon these this past week,  and these things taste like Almond Joy!  You could eat these as a dessert or as an energizing snack mid-day or after school and on the go!!  I recommend taking a cooler of some sort to keep them in because the chocolate melts and they get messy. (I usually try to keep a cooler in the car on big errand days anyways for water and if I end up stopping at a farmers market, I want to keep my finds cooler than the 140 degrees the car gets up to in the heat of August!  Plus, I've heard that keeping plastic water bottles in your hot car releases toxins into the water which may be linked to cancer. And I'm just NOT willing to take that chance.)

So anyways - here are the goods.  For anyone else who has read my Paleo posts before, I do a lot of shopping in Mobile, AL at The Fresh Market, so that's where I got most of my seeds, but I'm pretty sure Rouses (here in Ocean Springs) carries them too.

PALEO GRANOLA BARS

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup sliced almonds
• 2 cups finely shredded unsweetened coconut (Rouses)
• 1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 1/3 cup raw pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds)
• 1 Tbsp brown sesame seeds
• 1/2 cup blanched almond flower
• 1/3 cup extra virgin coconut oil. melted
• 1/4 cup unsweetened, natural almond butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 Tbsp flaxseed meal
• 1 1/2 Tbsp water
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips (with no soy lecithin) or your favorite chopped dried fruit (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 325F.  Grease a 9"x13" baking pan with coconut oil.

2. Mix ground flax seed with water and let it sit for 3-4 mins.

3. Pulse pepitas in a food processor a couple times until the seeds are about the size of sunflower seeds.

4. Add coconut oil, almond butter, honey and vanilla to flax goop and mix well.

5. Add almond flower and baking soda and stir to combine.

6. Add slivered almonds, shredded coconut, pepitas, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and chocolate chips.  Stir to combine.

7. Spoon batter into prepared baking pan.  Spread out and flatten well with your spatula.

8. Bake for 22-23 minutes, until golden brown.  They will puff up slightly while baking, so immediately after removing from the oven, flatten the bars with the back of your spatula again.

9.  Let cool completely in pan before cutting into bars (I refrigerated before cutting).  Cut into bars (be careful, I ended up using a deeper pan so I think mine were a bit thicker than what the original recipe called for so they were a bit more challenging to cut!) and toss into snack bags or plastic wrap.  I keep them in the refrigerator.

I hope everyone enjoys these as much as I do!  I will certainly be making more this week, because they are delicious!