Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Bars

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

Chocolate. Banana. Peanut butter. When your morning starts off with these things, you know it’s going to be a good day… but first let me back up to last night.

I had a girls’ night at my friend Jackie’s house, complete with good conversation, sweatpant attire, yummy food, wine, and playing of the game Apples to Apples. I put together a roasted red pepper hummus platter to bring to her house:

Roasted red pepper is my favorite type of hummus, so it only makes sense that I would try making this kind myself. I’m all about hummus these days! It’s really become my go-to appetizer to quickly whip up when having people over or going to a get-together. The recipe differs only a bit from my classic hummus, and I think this is my favorite hummus combo so far:

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Makes 1 cup/8 servings

• 1 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• Juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 TBSP tahini
• 1 whole garlic clove, peeled
• 2-3 roasted red peppers, each cut into a few slices
• About 1/4 TSP dried basil
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 2-4 TBSP water for thinning out spread

In a food processor, combine chickpeas, lemon juice, tahini, and garlic, pulsing until smooth.

Scrape mixture from sides, then add peppers, basil, salt, pepper, and a few TBSPs of water.  Pulse until combined well. Add more water if needed to get desired consistency.

Stats per 2 TBSP: about 50 calories, 2 g fat, 3 g protein, 8 g carbs

This morning, I woke up in the mood to be creative in the kitchen. I had a new energy bar combo on my brain. I started pulling things out from around my kitchen…

And came up with these babies:

I started out thinking I was making energy bars, but wound up with what I think is more of a healthy version of a brownie. No complaints about that here! 🙂

Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Bars

Makes 12

Ingredients:

• 1 mashed banana
• 2 scoops (26g) of chocolate protein powder (Designer Whey)
• 1 c chocolate soy milk (Soy Slender)
• 1/4 c unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 c old fashioned oats, dry
• 1/4 c whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c peanut butter
• 1/4 c honey
• 1/4 c semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 TSP salt

Preheat oven to 350. In a food processor, combine peanut butter, banana, honey, salt, and 1/2 c soy milk until smooth.

Add the oats, flour, cocoa powder, protein powder, and rest of milk, and pulse until combined.

Add the chocolate chips and pulse for just a few seconds. If the mix is too dry, you can add a bit of water to thin it out a bit.

Pour the mixture into a greased 13 x 9 pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool before cutting into bars.

Per serving: 200 calories, 8 g fat, 9 g protein, 26 g carbs

When Jackie picked me up today to go explore the downtown farmer’s market, she taste tested and approved of them!

Speaking of the market, I picked up an awesome shirt there:

Actually, Jackie and I each bought one, so one of these days we’ll be cool kids wearing matching I ❤ veggies shirts. Oh yeah.

My day so far has also consisted of a long walk with the puppy, yoga, and treating myself to an iced chai tea at my favorite local coffee shop:

Yum. I’ll take supporting local biz over going to Starbucks any day!

Plans for the rest of my day: I’m off to have a Skype date with my marine, then will be getting ready for a night out with my newly engaged friend and some of her girlfriends. This is the first time I’m seeing her since her marine popped the question, so I’m looking forward to hearing all about it. Enjoy your Saturday night!