SS&GF: Simply Sugar and Gluten Free

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Welcome to this week’s special edition of Slightly Indulgent Tuesday – healthier snacks.  I get so many requests for quick and nutritious snacks that I thought it fitting to make today a theme.

I know it can be a hassle to come up with a special dish for a round up, so if you didn’t no big deal.  Please link up anyway.  For those of you who did, thanks so much.  I think we’ll help some people.

A Healthy Snacks to Go Give-Away
Contest is now closed: 7/4/10

My friend Katie, from Kitchen Stewardship, recently released her first e-book – Healthy Snacks to Go. She’s put together over 30 nutritious, frugal snacks you can make with little time.  Also included are tips for storage and transport, average cost, healthy upgrades, and helpful icons that denote allergy friendly recipes.

Not all recipes are sugar-free or gluten-free but at least 12 are.  Her ideas about using less sugar are inspiring and I’m confident her recipes can be successfully created gluten-free.

She’s got some fabulous Mommy snacks, like applesauce fruit roll-ups, popeye bars, lunchbox veggie dip, and tater skin crispies.  You can view a complete table of contents at Kitchen Stewardship.

Do These Healthy Snacks Really Go?

I had the opportunity to see of her healthy snacks would really work on the go when I was in NYC at The Fancy Food Show.  I take food with me on every trip, and generally make my own version of LaraBars.  (I wonder why I’ve never posted them…) Regardless, I whipped up a Katie’s German Chocolate Power Bars in 5 minutes an hour before I had to leave for the airport.

Honestly, I was skeptical at best about using unsweetened chocolate.  But I have faith in Katie so I went for it.  So glad I did.  These bars are fantastic.  I did make a couple modifications, though.  Somehow I can never stop myself from putting my own twist on things.

• I doubled the coconut.  I love coconut. Next time, I’m going to triple it.
• She calls for a teaspoon of coconut oil.  I used 1/2 teaspoon but think it wasn’t necessary.  The bars were already sticking together really well.
• I pressed the bars into an 8×4 loaf pan which created four perfect sized snack bars.  They went directly into the freezer so I could cut them once chilled, a tip from Katie.
• Because of the nuts, the bars are a little sticky and oily.  So, I coated them in shredded coconut, wrapped them in waxed paper, and put them in my carry on.

They traveled very well.  If you can’t keep them refrigerated, a fine dusting of unsweetened cocoa powder would help absorb the natural nut oils.

Printer-friendly recipe

German Chocolate Power Bars
from Healthy Snacks to Go by Katie Kimball at Kitchen Stewardship

½ ounce unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup pecans
1/4 cup almonds
½ cup dates
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons coconut
1 teaspoon coconut oil until sticky (I didn’t need any coconut oil in mine.)

Place unsweetened chocolate, pecans, and almonds in the bowl of your food processor fitted with a steel blade.  Pulse several times until the nuts are roughly chopped.  Add in the dates, cocoa powder, and coconut and grind until a dough forms, or the mixture sticks together itself.  Add the coconut oil if you need more sticking power.  Press into an 8×4 loaf pan and chill for 10 – 15 minutes.  Remove with a rubber spatula and cut into desired size.  Keeps best refrigerated in an airtight container.

You can buy Katie’s e-book for $6.95. If you’re looking for nourishing snacks, she has something that will work for you.

Enter to win one of two copies being given away by doing any or all of the following & make sure to leave a comment for each entry:

• “Like” SS&GF on Facebook.
• Follow me on Twitter.
• Subscribe to SS&GF via RSS or e-mail.
• Check out the Healthy Snacks to Go’s table of contents here and choose the recipe that interests you the most.
• Follow Katie on Twitter.
• “Like” Kitchen Stewardship’s Facebook page.
• Subscribe to Kitchen Stewardship.
• Tweet about this give-away and/or link up your healthier snack.

This give-away will end on Sunday, July 4th at 9 pm CST.

Buy Healthy Snacks to Go.

Linking Up Guidelines!!

• When you link, please tell us who you are and what you’re cooking. For example, I might enter:
  Amy @ Simply Sugar & Gluten Free – (Curried Rice & Lentils)
• Please link to your individual post, not your homepage and link back to this post so that your readers can find the recipes here.

I hate deleting links but some get deleted every week.

If you find that your link has been deleted it’s because it doesn’t link to your post or you haven’t linked back here. E-mail me with questions or if you need help.

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