Sunday, August 18, 2013

White Chocolate Macadamia Clif Bars


Soft, chewy, sweet, and filling.  Clif bars are an amazing mid-afternoon pick-me-up, or pre/post workout snack. These little beauties aren't like your normal run-of-the-mill granola bar. Oh no, these are much more than a granola bar. These taste more like a candy bar. A guilt-free candy bar. If you haven't tried one before, pick up your keys, put on your shoes and drive to the nearest drug or grocery store to purchase one. Once you've tried one, you'll get hooked!




Now that you're back from your little Clif bar trip, why not make your own? You'll save money, and you can make your own flavor mixes! When I decided to try my hand at making some, I went to Pinterest to find inspiration. I looked at multiple recipes, and combined them. Granted, most of them were the same, but none of them were the flavor I wanted to make, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut. So, get our your mixing bowl, spoon, and a baking dish along with a few other pieces of kitchen equipment and start mixing!

Ingredients

1 1/4 C rice cereal (such as rice crispies)
1 C oats
3 T ground flaxseed
1/4 C macadamia nuts, toasted
1/4 C white chocolate chips
1/4 C honey
2 T splenda brown sugar (or regular brown sugar)
1/3 C peanut butter 
1 t vanilla extract (real, not imitation)

Instructions

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl.
In a small saucepan, bring the honey and brown sugar to a boil, stirring constantly. Turn off the heat, and stir in the peanut butter and vanilla extract.
Pour sauce over the dry ingredients, and mix until fully combined.
Spray a glass baking dish with cooking spray. Pour the mixture into the dish. Push down the mixture with wax paper.
Cool in the fridge until set.
Cut into 8 pieces.



Nutritional Information

176 calories
7 g fat
25 g carbohydrates
2.5 g fiber
5 g protein

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Mickey's Jingle Jungle 5K

Photo Source

It is officially 86 days until my next 5K! I'm going to run the Mickey's Jingle Jungle 5K during the Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend!!! I am ecstatic! I cannot wait to run with thousands of my closest strangers friends! Not to mention Mickey and Minnie and anyone else who decides to cheer us all on. 

What am I doing to help me prepare? You may have heard of a little program called Couch to 5K. It is fabulous! They have a free app that you can download on your iPod, or android device, and it tells you when to run and walk. While that program is running, you can have your music playing in the background. If you're like me, you begin to go stir-crazy thinking about your muscles, breathing, distance remaining, etc. I definitely need something to keep my mind off of it! 

Each week, I will update you all on my C25K progress, and also provide some tunes that I found particularly helpful that week :)