STOP BUYING SNACKS!

Stop buying over priced nut butters, granola bars and dried fruit, seriously. 

Those are the EASIEST snacks to make, really.. what are you thinking!?!!?

Lately I have been making all of my peanut, almond, sunflower seed, and cashew butters. I'm OBSESSED.

NUT BUTTER

All you need is 1. Food Processor and 2. Your choice of nut and/or 3. Flavoring

Directions:

1. Throw those puppies into a food processor

2. Sit and wait atleast 8 minutes for it to become a creamy texture.

Yes soo first its choppy, then crumbly, and when all hope has been lost

 that it's not going to get creamified... just keep waiting, I promise it will :)

In my cashew butter I made today I added some honey, cinnamon, sea salt, vanilla and coconut oil.

to make it 1. super creamy and 2. a little more sweet. 

It was extremely worth it, extremely yummy, MUCH more affordable, AND you can add whatever you'd like to it.

LARABARS

Larabars are one of a few granola bars that don't use unnecessary, hard to pronounce, unknown ingredients. They are delicious and all natural. 

So of course what did kayla do? Learned how to make them! 

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO

1. Choose a "paste", which usually a dried fruit works best

- Dried Blueberries

- Dried Cranberries

- Dates

-Raisins

- Dried pineapple

- Prunes

- Dried Apple

2. Choose your crunch

- Peanuts

- Almonds

- Cashews

- Pecans

-Walnuts

3. Choose a flavoring/extra

- Shredded coconut

- Flax

- Lemon

-Vanilla extract

-Almond extract

- Ginger spice

- Cinnamon

- Dark chocolate

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the chosen crunch into a food processor until it is finely chopped. 

2. Empty the crunch out of the food processor into a bowl

3. Place the chosen paste into the food processor and process until it becomes thick, while processing add in the chosen flavoring as well.

4. Empty food processor of the paste and flavoring, into the same bowl the nuts are in. 

5. Mix everything together and form into bite size bars

6. Place onto plastic wrap or parchment paper to refrain from stickiness. 

7. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours in order for bars to become sturdy. 

Chopped Almonds

Combined with cranberries and almond extract

1. Cranberry, Almond, Almond Extract (top)

2. Peanuts, dried apples, vanilla extract, topped with cinnamon (bottom)

APPLE CHIPS

This dehydrator is going to become my BEST FRIEND this semester. 

It is time consuming, but also very convenient when looking for something to replace a crunchy snack. 

Slice up some apples, pour some lemon juice on them, and let them hang out in this

handy little dehydrator for about 12 hours.

Put them in at like 9pm and by the time you wake up in the morning you'll have some tasty chips :)

I also stuck some blueberries in there, just to see what would happen. After 12 hours they were still a bit juicey, so next time I would possibly leave them in their longer.