Breakfast Bars (Or, the ways in which I'm trying to not eat yogurt everyday!)

So, many years ago, my dad and I started playing around with home made alternatives to Clif bars. I learned a lot through those experiments and from time to time I play around with the recipe when I am tired of my usual breakfast options. Yesterday I made a "cookie" version with vegan chocolate chips and no veggies for class today and was inspired to share the "recipe" with you all. These are REMARKABLY similar to "Nikki's Cookies" on 101 cookbooks, but I think banana based treats are pretty standard to all health nuts.

Ingredients
3 big and really ripe bananas (You can sub a banana for 1/2 cup of pumpkin purée and make a wintry version too! I've never tried to go for all pumpkin, but it might work. I also sometimes use pumpkin butter instead of the purée.)
1/4 cup coconut, walnut or olive oil (I've only recently played around with coconut oil, but I think its my favorite for baked treats like this!)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinammon (Try more spices, especially if you're using pumpkin.)
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/6 cup chopped dried tart cherries
1/6 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/6 cup pepitas or toasted sunflower seeds
1/3 cup chopped carrots (grated beets are great too!)
3/4 cup coarse almond meal (Can sub peanut meal or cashew meal. I just always have sliced almonds that I can grind up, but use whatever raw nuts you have!)
1 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Spelt flour as needed

Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare a baking sheet by lining it in parchment paper.

In a large bowl mash the bananas. Add the oil (if using coconut oil you'll need to heat it so that it is liquid), vanilla, and cinnamon. Stir well.

In a separate bowl mix the oats, almond meal, baking soda and salt. Combine with the banana mash. If its looking really wet, add some spelt flour a teaspoon at a time. It should be like thick cookie batter when its ready.

Handshape little "bars" on the cookie sheet. Bake for 17 minutes until the bottoms and tops are golden and the bars are set. These don't really spread, so don't worry about giving them a ton of space on the cookie sheet. I'm still trying to figure out how to get these to be just a little less soft so that they're more transportable. If you figure anything out, let me know!

Makes about a dozen.

Foolproof Smoothies

I secretly worked at a smoothie place my first year of undergrad, and have been making smoothies at home ever since. The key ingredient is banana - without it the smoothie will be, well, not as smooth. I recently got a new blender, which is why smoothies are on the brain. They're great for hangovers too :)

The standard:

1/2 c. orange juice or other juice
1 banana
1 scoop protein powder (I prefer Spirutein but haven't found it in Chicago so I've been using Whole Foods' vanilla flavored protein powder with spirulina)
1/4 c. frozen or fresh fruit - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, peaches, and/or mango all work well
4 ice cubes

The always-failproof combo is OJ, strawberries, and banana.

Optional add-ons: vitamin C tablet, dash of vanilla, freshly grated ginger, and/or honey, even booze

Toss in blender and blend till smooth. Voila!