Coconut Almond Bars- CA Bars

I couldn't wait to make these, there inexpensive to make and you can make a lot of bars to last quite some time. I ended up with about 25 bars about about 2 1/2 in. long, 1 in. wide, and 1/2 in thick. That's about a good size protein/energy bar. I shared some with my healthy foodie co-worker, and she loved it. I brought another one for my lovely friend, who also shared it with my other co-workers, they all enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm truly glad everyone liked it. I'm going to bring some in and keep it in the fridge at work.Check out the recipe, next time, I'll add pictures.

Ingredients:

1 Cup of  pitted Dates
2 cups of Almonds
2-3 heaping tbsp of Almond butter
2-3 heaping tbsp of Coconut Oil
1 1/2 cups of shredded coconut
1 vanilla bean, or 1 1/2 tbsp of Vanilla extract

The "How to" part

1. Using a food processor, mash the dates till it forms a paste. About 1 min. Remove and set aside

2. Next pulse the almonds till coarsely ground, don't make it into a powder. You should still see some large pieces of almonds.

3. Place the almond butter, dates, coconut oil, shredded coconut and vanilla bean or extract.  Blend till all ingredients are thoroughly mixed, and forms a ball when squeezed together. If the mixture doesn't come together, you can add more dates, or almond butter.

4. There's two ways to do this next step, if you have a large refrigerator, use step A, if you are limited in refrigeration space, use Step B.

Step A:  using a large cookie sheet lined with wax paper, press the mixture into the pan, ensure that the mixture is firm. If you have any leftover mixture use another cookie sheet or a square cake pan.

Step B:  Use a square pyrex pan and place all the mixture into the pan. Firmly press the mixture into the pan.

5. After firmly pressing the mixture in the desired pan, using a knife, you may want to cut the bars now. When the bars are thoroughly cooled the mixture is hard to cut through. If you'd like to cut the bars larger, feel free to do so, if you want to cut them smaller, you may do that also.  You can also create cool shapes if you like. Once you've sliced or cut out shapes, place in the refrigerator for several hours, or overnight so the bars can firm up. Then you can wrap them in wax paper, or clear wrap. Make sure to keep them in a cool place, because they might fall apart if it's to warm.

Hope you enjoy the recipe. Leave some comments. Thanks