Hell Yeah It's Vegan!

Larabar copycat recipes are all the rage lately. Take a blender, throw in some dates and nuts and flavorings, et voilà, you too can sell food that looks like it’s already passed through your digestive system at least once at outrageously exorbitant prices! There’s a reason everyone’s been imitating them, though: their bars taste amazing and are a fairly simple, healthful treat. Thusly inspired, I concocted these Raw Almond Fig Bars, which have the added benefits of being cheap and packed with calcium.

Don’t get me wrong; I love dates. One of my favorite memories of a cross-country road trip I took a couple of years ago was tasting dates fresh off the tree in California (seriously, nothing else even comes close). And I am a sucker for those coconut date rolls you can find in the supermarket. But dates (particularly the good ones) are also expensive, and not particularly high in nutritional value. And besides, I didn’t have dates on my shelves . . . I had figs.

Here’s my lesson for the day: never throw out dried fruit. As long as it hasn’t gotten wormy or moldy, you can always rehydrate it. These figs were lost in my pantry for a good six months and were so hard they wouldn’t have been edible plain. I soaked them overnight and they incorporated perfectly into this recipe.

Dried figs are actually rather terrific for you. They’re also very high in fiber, magnesium, manganese, and potassium (even moreso than bananas!). They’re calcium-rich, too, just like the almonds and sesame seeds in this recipe. If you’re not concerned about this being raw, a bit of high-calcium blackstrap molasses might nicely round out the dark and sweet flavors here.

Raw Almond Fig Bars

2 c raw almonds
12 oz dried black mission figs, soaked for a few hours and de-stemmed
½ c dried dark sweet cherries
1/3 c coconut
¼ c sesame seeds
1-2 tbsp agave nectar, optional

In a food processor, grind almonds into a coarse meal. Some bits and pieces should remain.

Take care not to grind them too long; you don’t want to end up with almond butter. Add figs and cherries and blend until mixture forms a ball. Fold in coconut, sesame seeds, and agave.

Form the dough into 1″ balls and roll in a bowl of shredded coconut and sesame seeds, or press into a loaf pan or 8×8″ pan (depending on desired thickness) lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate until firm; slice as desired. For easy transportation, bars can be individually wrapped in plastic wrap; refrigerate in an airtight container to store.

By the way, you can make raw bars like these with pretty much any combination of things, as long as you use a roughly similar dry to wet ratio. If your mixture is too dry, you can always grind it longer. Go ahead and experiment with different kinds of dried fruits, nuts, spices, and extracts. The sky’s the limit!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 10:12 am and is filed under Almond, Cherries, Coconut, Desserts, Figs, Food Preservation, Gluten-Free, Raw, Recipes, Snacks, Vegan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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