Energy Bites

I've been seeing energy bites recipes and they all call for whole oats or ingredients I don't care for, so I decided to come up with my own. I made these twice but the first time I had more craisins in them and too much coconut oil as the oil separated from the rest of the ingredients. This time I think I got it right by adding more oatmeal and putting in less coconut oil.

So, first I gathered all my ingredients.

I measured out the liquid ingredients first and mixed them up thoroughly.

Then I added the nuts and craisins. I would have added more craisins but the bag was empty.

Then I measured the oats and flaxseed and put it in the food processor to grind it into a flour.

I poured the ground flax and oats into the other ingredients and mixed it together.

I kept mixing until the dry ingredients were all coated.

Next I formed the batter into small balls. I started using my fingers but some of the batter was still a bit sticky. I probably needed to mix the batter up more before balling them. Eventually I ended up using a cookie scoop without filling it quite full so they were smaller in size. I placed them on wax paper when I was finished.

I had a couple squares of chocolate bark left from another baking project so decided to melt that up and put it on top of some of the energy bites.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very talented when it comes to coating with chocolate bark. So although they aren't the prettiest, the taste is great!

Landi Raemi's Energy Bites

Ingredients:

1 c. peanut butter

1 t. vanilla

1/4 c. coconut oil

1/2 c. honey

1 T. craisins

1/4 c. sunflower seed nuts

2 T. wheat germ

3 c. oatmeal, measured first, then ground

1/2 c. flaxseed, measured first, then ground

Optional: Chocolate bark

Directions:

Measure out liquid ingredients and place in bowl. Mix thoroughly. Add craisins, nuts and wheat germ. Mix thoroughly. Measure out oatmeal and flaxseed and place in food processor. Grind into flour. Pour the flour mixture into the batter and mix thoroughly. Form into small balls.

Optional:

Melt chocolate bark and coat energy balls. Place on wax paper to dry. Enjoy!

Update:

Because of the extreme warm weather we had been having, I put these in the refrigerator so that they would set up better. My husband and one of my sons tried them and absolutely loved them! I commented that my original plan was to coat the entire ball with chocolate bark and my husband begged me not to change a thing! He insisted that they were perfect with just a little bit of the chocolate bark drizzled over the top. He felt if I coated the entire ball it would be too much chocolate. Then he added that I should finish adding chocolate to the ones without any chocolate coating.

The Bites Gone Bar!

I know, I know, the husband didn't want me to change anything on this recipe. But I'm constantly looking for ways to improve things by saving time or money. In this case, it was time!

So what I did was place the finished batter into a pan. Since I ran out of the chocolate bark, and since I love milk chocolate even better, I frosted these energy bars with 1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips and 1/4 cup of peanut butter melted in a double boiler. Turned out even better ... I can't get enough of these!

Once again, another revision of this recipe. Since I'm trying to eliminate as much gluten in my diet where I'm able to, and since wheat germ contains gluten, I've eliminated it completely. And, because I never have any Craisins in the house, I also replaced them with more of the sunflower nuts. You can still add the Craisins if you so choose, just remember to reduce the amount of sunflower nuts.

Another thing I changed was to leave my flaxseed whole. I tend to like the taste and crunch of them just the way they are. However, I reduced the amount as too many didn't seem to adhere to the finished bar. And last of all, I decided to make it mandatory to leave the chocolate frosting on these bars.

My revised recipe:

Landi Raemi's Energy Bars

Ingredients:

1 c. peanut butter

1 t. vanilla

1/4 c. coconut oil

1/2 c. honey

1/4 c. + 2 T. sunflower nuts

1/4 c. flaxseed

3 c. oatmeal, measured first, then ground

Directions:

Measure out liquid ingredients and place in bowl. Mix thoroughly. Measure out oatmeal and place in food processor. Grind into flour. Place in separate bowl. Add sunflower nuts and flaxseed to oatmeal flour and mix together. Combine the flour mixture with the liquid mixture and mix thoroughly. Spread in bottom of pan. I use my 7.5"x10.5" Rock 'n Serve Tupperware pan which is the perfect size.

Frosting:

Ingredients:

1/4 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. milk chocolate chips

Directions:

Melt peanut butter along with the milk chocolate chips in a double boiler. Spread on bars.

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

Before & After Photo Manipulation

My new hobby is photo shooting and manipulation. My daughter and I enjoyed taking photos this past summer and using Photoshop Elements for enhancing them. Many of the photos I've included in this post were uploaded to Capture Minnesota. I was not able to upload the photo of my grandson at the lake because it was taken in South Dakota. However, it was such a drastic change that I decided to add it here.

Today I finished manipulating two photos into one final print. The first photo is of my husband and me placing our hands in the form of a heart. The second is a photo of our four children taken a few years ago that I clipped around, cut and pasted onto the first, for what I call Heart of Arms Family photo.

Most of the photos were taken with a Canon CoolPix L120. I recently purchased a Canon EOS 60D camera so that my daughter was able to take the older one off to college where she hopes to start a photography club.

So here are several photos before and after photo manipulation, with the before photos being put before the after photos. How appropriate, right? Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Heart of Arms Family.  This is the one I wrote about above where I took two photos and put them together. I had to enlarge the photo of me and my husband so that when I pasted the first one onto the layer the kids fit within our arms.

Bale Chute.  Because I wanted the focus point to be Keisha holding up the bale chute so it wouldn't be caught under the hayrack, I left the color over that area and made the rest of the photo black and white..

Bale Elevator.  This one is more about the angle of the photo to give it a different point of view.

In Memorium.  At my daughter's suggestion, this one was taken low to the ground, shooting upward. Isn't she clever? I cropped this one to frame the flags, and even straightened it up a bit. I also enhanced the colors. The effect is wonderful!

Maxton's Rocky Beach.  As you can tell on this one, I removed the legs. In order to do a quick work of it, I darkened the edges to camouflage my work.

Mesmerized.  My daughter felt this photo was absolutely ridiculous looking, but I loved her expression and wasn't quite sure how to use the photo at first. I decided to blacken everything out around her face and as I did it seemed that her expression changed along with the rest of the photo changes.

New Beginnings.  This is a beautiful wild rose bud. I simply cropped it to bring it in closer and used the contrast and brightness to lighten it up.

Pink Bully.  Another beautiful flower from a bull thistle.

Stack 'Em Up.  Once again, the focus was to be on Keisha; therefore, I cropped it and worked on the color.

Wild Roses.  More of the same photo manipulations. Simply beautiful.

Capture Minnesota.  Except for Maxton's Rocky Beach, all of these photos were taken in Minnesota and uploaded onto Capture Minnesota. View my dashboard here for more fun photos.

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!