Protein Bars

I made these protein bars to have available as a snack after seeing the recipe on the MoneySavingMom.com and after a friend made them and said they were quite tasty.  They were quite good, but I can't just leave things well enough alone, and Matt requested more peanut butter flavor, so I played with the recipe a bit.  Here's what I ended up doing.

 1 mashed banana
3 cups dried oatmeal
4 Tbs. flax seed, ground
4 scoops vanilla protein powder
3/4 c. peanut butter (approximately, I just kept globing it in there after doubling the original amount.  Matt really likes his peanut butter!)
1/3 c. coconut, toasted (I don't like the taste or texture of regular shredded coconut, but toasted doesn't bother me)
1/2 c. coconut oil
1/3 c. water
1/4 c. dried blueberries
1/4 c. dried cranberries
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I used a half semi-sweet, half milk chocolate this time around.  No dark chocolate in the house right now.)

Mix everything except dried fruit and chocolate in stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment until well combined.  Divide mixture in half and add cranberries to one half and blueberries to the other half, mixing well.  Press firmly in to a foil lined 9x9 pan, blueberries on one half and cranberries on the other.  Melt chocolate in double boiler (or glass bowl set over a small sauce pan) over hot but not boiling water. (Don't let water touch the bottom of the double boiler instert/glass bowl.  This can scald your chocolate.)  Spread melted chocolate over bars, freeze until firm enough to cut, at least one hour.  Score chocolate with a sharp knife before cutting, otherwise your chocolate may crack and come off the bars.  Wrap individual bars in plastic wrap and store in the freezer.

I eat them straight from the freezer, but you could let a bar sit for a few minutes to soften up a bit if you prefer.  They don't take long to soften up.

So basically I doubled the stuff in the bar we liked and left the chocolate on top the same so Matt would like the chocolate-to-bar ratio better.  The girls think the bars are very tasty as well.  I'm sure I'll tinker with the recipe a bit more in the future for fun (I'm contemplating using drained applesauce instead of the mashed banana just to see how that goes), so if anything else super tasty results I'll be sure to let you all know!