Clean Nut-Free Vegan Oat Bars

This is one of my favourite recipes I've made in a while. Recently I've felt a bit lost on the snacking front - so many shop bought snacks contain masses of sugar (hello the delicious and marketed as 'healthy' Nature Valley bars). My boyfriend is allergic to nuts, so I can't go for nakd bars or healthier options like that either. Starting to reach minor levels of insanity, and feeling myself ogling the crisps when food shopping, I decided to take matters into my own hands and home make some oat bars. A final plus is that they work out cheaper than store bought ones.

Ingredients (makes 1 batch):

300g porridge oats

2 ripe bananas

200g soft figs

50g dried cranberries

3 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Handful of chia seeds

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Finely chop the figs. 

 2.) Mash the bananas and mix them together with the honey, vanilla essence and figs .

(It may not look pretty now, but don't worry, they're delicious)

3.) Mix the oats, chia seeds and cranberries in a bowl. 

4.) Add the wet ingredients to the bowl and mix. 

5.) Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Press the mixture into the tin.

6.) Cook for 15-20 minutes, or until it's darkened to a golden brown a little. Cut up and serve. 

What's your go-to healthy snack?

Love and Light

Steph

Adaptation of Jess My Clean Treats' Clean Double Chocolate and Banana Brownies

This brownies are delicious beyond words - and ridiculously simple to make dairy free (woo!). I've borrowed and slightly adapted this recipe from the wonderful Jess over at My Clean Treats - check her out for a whole wealth of delicious, healthy sweet snacks! You can find the original recipe here. My housemates, who seem to view clean eating as some kind of dirty phrase, instead loving a good ol' portion of cheesy chips and kebab ~ sigh ~ , couldn't tell the difference between these and normal calorie and fat laden ones! These are definitely my favourite treat at the moment, and are perfect for Spring-time picnics, or a little pick-me-up to keep you going until the weather improves. 

Ingredients: 

256 grams wholewheat plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 heaped tablespoons cacao powder

350g Sweet Freedom natural syrup from fruit

1.5 tablespoons coconut oil

3 mashed bananas

235ml rice milk

2 eggs

100g vegan/dark chocolate

Handful of chia seeds

1.) Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

2.) Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cacao into a bowl and add the chia seeds. Stir.

3.) Pour the rice milk and syrup into a bowl and mix as well as possible.

4.) Place the coconut oil and the dark chocolate block (broken up) into a saucepan and melt together. Add to the second bowl (wet ingredients bowl). 

5.) Mash the banana and add to the wet ingredients bowl. Stir well.

6.) Combine the wet and dry mixtures. Stir until they are thoroughly mixed. 

7.) Place baking paper into a baking tray and pour the mixture in.

8.) Cook for 25 minutes. Enjoy whilst still warm - this is my favourite way!

Love and Light

Steph