brian bars post

_posts/2017-9-6-brian-bars.md

@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Brian Bars
+---
+
+It actually blows my mind it's been 4 years since I used this blog. It was
+previously a tech blog, but then I started putting all my tech-related posts on
+[the cryptic blog](cryptic.io). As of now this is a lifestyle/travel blog. The
+me of 4 years ago would be horrified.
+
+Now I just have to come up with a lifestyle and do some traveling.
+
+# Brian Bars
+
+This isn't a real recipe because I'm not going to preface it with my entire
+fucking life story. Let's talk about the food.
+
+Brian bars:
+
+* Are like Clif Bars, but with the simplicity of ingredients that Larabars have.
+* Are easy to make, only needing a food processor (I use a magic bullet) and a
+  stovetop oven.
+* Keep for a long time and don't really need refrigerating (but don't mind it
+  neither)
+* Are paleo, vegan, gluten-free, free-range, grass-fed, whatever...
+* Are really really filling.
+* Are named after me, deal with it.
+
+I've worked on this recipe for a bit, trying to make it workable, and will
+probably keep adjusting it (and this post) as time goes on.
+
+## Ingredients
+
+Nuts and seeds. Most of this recipe is nuts and seeds. Here's the ones I used:
+
+* 1 cup almonds
+* 1 cup peanuts
+* 1 cup walnuts
+* 1/2 cup flax seeds
+* 1/2 cup sesame seeds
+
+For all of those above it doesn't _really_ matter what nuts/seeds you use, it's
+all gonna get ground up anyway. So whatever's cheap works fine. Also, avoid
+salt-added ones if you can.
+
+The other ingredients are:
+
+* 1 cup raisins/currants
+* 1.5 lbs of pitted dates (no added sugar! you don't need it!)
+* 2 cups oats
+
+## Grind up the nuts
+
+Throw the nuts into the food processor and grind them into a powder. Then throw
+that powder into a bowl along with the seeds, raisins, and oats, and mix em
+good.
+
+I don't _completely_ grind up the nuts, instead leaving some chunks in it here
+and there, but you do you.
+
+## Prepare the dates
+
+This is the harder part, and is what took me a couple tries to get right. The
+best strategy I've found is to steam the dates a bit over a stove to soften
+them. Then, about a cup at a time, you can throw them in the food processor and
+turn them into a paste. You may have to add a little water if your processor is
+having trouble.
+
+Once processed you can add the dates to the mix from before and stir it all up.
+It'll end up looking something like cookie dough. Except unlike cookie dough
+it's completely safe to eat and maybe sorta healthy.
+
+## Bake it, Finish it
+
+Put the dough stuff in a pan of some sort, flatten it out, and stick it in the
+oven at like 250 or 300 for a few hours. You're trying to cook out the water you
+added earlier when you steamed the dates, as well as whatever little moisture
+the dates had in the first place.
+
+Once thoroughly baked you can stick the pan in the fridge to cool and keep,
+and/or cut it up into individual bars. Keep in mind that the bars are super
+filling and allow for pretty small portions. Wrap em in foil or plastic wrap and
+take them to-go, or keep them around for a snack. Or both. Or whatever you want
+to do, it's your food.
+
+## Cleanup
+
+Dates are simultaneously magical and the most annoying thing to work with, so
+there's cleanup problems you may run into with them:
+
+Protip #1: When cleaning your processed date slime off of your cooking utensils
+I'd recommend just letting them soak in water for a while. Dry-ish date slime
+will stick to everything, while soaked date slime will come right off.
+
+Protip #2: Apparently if you want ants, dates are a great way to get ants. My
+apartment has never had an ant problem until 3 hours after I made a batch of
+these and didn't wipe down my counter enough. I'm still dealing with the ants.
+Apparently there's enviromentally friendly ant poisons where the ants happily
+carry the poison back into the nest and the whole nest eats it and dies. Which
+feels kinda mean in some way, but is also pretty clever and they're just ants
+anyway so fuck it.