snacks

People who know me know I’ve been losing some weight recently.

And that’s a good thing.

I’ve lost a bunch, too. So much that my pants don’t fit me anymore. I can even see it myself, which I usually don’t. But that’s also a good thing. I still have a long way to go, but this is a good start.

Part of this is trying to eat a bit healthier.

I don’t snack as much as I used to and I try and limit certain things. Though, I’ll admit, sometimes it’s hard. I also have to watch my sugar for health reasons, so I’m always trying to find something I can snack on that won’t send my blood sugars into the stratosphere.

A few days ago, I saw a post on my friend Chuck’s Facebook page. It was for no-bake peanut butter bars. Again, if you know me, you know what I think about peanut butter. It’s right up there with bacon. And cheese.

Anyway, I got peeking at this recipe and knew I needed to try it. Not that I’ve become Chef Ramsay or anything lately, but I’ve been pretty successful with trying new things in the kitchen. This seemed like something perfect to try.

But as I read the post at this blog about them, I discovered something else — no-bake peanut butter pretzel chocolate chip granola bars.

Yes, please.

When I go out to play disc golf or geocache, having snacks is a must. And this was something I needed to see how good they were and if it’s something I should have on hand more often.

But I’m only going to cover one of these in this post and the other will come sometime next week. First up are the peanut butter bars, which are amazingly good.

The blog which had the peanut butter bars was Six Sisters’ Stuff. There, they acknowledge they adapted the recipe from another blog. I look at both recipes and I like the adapted one a bit more, so I went with it.

However, I needed to give it a spin of my own — as in trying to make it a little less heavy on the sugar. (Too much sugar, after all, makes my levels go nuts… so what can we do… fix it!)

The recipe, from the Six Sisters’ site, is as follows (my changes are in italics):

Ingredients

• 1 cup margarine melted
• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar (I made a sugar free version of this, using Equal. It wasn’t too bad, though the measurements I found were off and I needed to use much more Equal than originally called for)
• 1 cup + 4 tablespoons peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

Directions

In a medium bowl, mix together the melted butter, graham cracker crumbs, confectioners’ sugar, and 1 cup peanut butter until well blended. Press evenly into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13 inch pan (I don’t think I used a 9X13, but it was close enough). Then, melt the chocolate chips with the peanut butter, stirring every 30 seconds until melted and smooth. Spread over the peanut butter layer and refrigerate for at least one hour before cutting and eating.

This was quite easy to do and it didn’t take too long. I wanted to use sugar free chocolate chips, but the local grocery store didn’t have them. I will make these again and I think I’d look around to try and find those to use.

End result?

Oh. My. God.

These are fantastic. Quite rich, but if you are a peanut butter fan, well worth it. Keep ’em in the fridge as they taste way better that way. I really like how they came out. And it seems like it’s a bit healthier than some of the other things I like to snack on, so bonus there. I’m really glad Chuck posted this to his Facebook and it’s a recipe that will stay with me, that’s for sure.

I think it might be fun, too, to play with this recipe. Maybe try a different peanut butter. One of the flavored ones, maybe? Or, try something different on the topping with a different type of chips? White chocolate, perhaps? Now that sounds divine.

The best part of this recipe is how easy it is. You don’t have to be some five-star chef to pull it off. Just go at it and have some incredible peanut butter bars as a snack. If you are a peanut butter nut, it’s well worth it.