Nuts!

That title is a G-rated version of what escaped my lips when I looked outside Saturday:

On March 16, I was planning to plant my peas in time with the gardening tradition of putting the seeds in the ground by St. Patrick's Day.

Now, I don't mind cold, but it seems ridiculous to actually shovel through a few inches of snow to plant something. 

Fortunately, I had another idea... (that, just so you know, has totally nothing to do with gardening)

Since I'd visited one of my favorite places in the world earlier this week, I had plenty of supplies on hand for a few kitchen projects (involving, you guessed it - NUTS). 

I love Larabars, and from time to time purchase a case of them from Amazon.  Costing, at best, slightly over $1 each (at worst, closer to $1.50), these are not cheap snacks, but they are healthy and tasty and have like 4 ingredients.  There are myriad recipes online for making your own, and once I got my hands on some cheap dates (ha! cheap dates...) I decided to try making a batch.

I followed this link for its technique, and got some recipe inspiration here.  I went with a twist on the Key Lime Pie flavor, instead using lemon and lemon zest for what I am calling Lemon Cream Pie. 

The ingredients were:

1 cup of dates
1 cup of toasted (in the oven, 350 degrees for 10 minutes) raw cashews
1/2 cup toasted unsweetened coconut (in the same 350 degree over, for 3-4 minutes)
zest of one lemon
about 1/2 Tablespoon of lemon juice
a dash (literally, just a tiny bit) of salt

You whizz it all around in a food processor... first it looks chopped, then it turns into a paste that will stick to the sides of the bowl.  You turn it out onto some wax paper, shape it into a nice flat rectangle, and chill.  Then cut it up, wrap in waxed paper, and keep in the refrigerator until ready to eat!

The end result is really tasty and slightly smaller (thinner) than your average Larabar.  I was worried that the lemon might be too tart, but the sweetness in the dates and coconut really seems to balance that out.  They are really good! (and cheap)  Which is nice, because I have a lot of dates left over.

A rough estimate of the nutrition info on these babies, per bar (my recipe made 8 of rather irregular size): 168 calories, 21 g carbohydrate, 8 g fat, 3 g protein, 3 g fiber.  They are cholesterol free.