I have been cycling a lot recently in preparation for cycling from Ottawa to Kingston and back in June. Rob and I have slowly increased our daily distances, and on Sunady we cycled 168km. Terrain around Toronto can be mostly flat, so we have been trying to incorporate hills into our routes. There will be some killer hills en route to Kingston.
Last year, The Toronto Star listed some scenic hills for cyclists and we have been exploring them one-by-one ever since. Two weeks ago, we conquered the brutal hill in Twyn Rivers and this week we tackled the steep and curvy hill at Appleby Line in Burlington. I have to zigzag up the hills because I can’t ride them straight – I just don’t have the gears to go that low nor are my legs that strong! We only have one more hill left on the list (Redway) but it has been fun to see different areas in Toronto.
I have been making tons of different energy bars for my cycling trips and will start by sharing these healthy snacks from the Thrive Diet (original recipe posted here, and video of Brendan making them is here). I like the Thrive Diet because it highlights eating nutrient-dense foods. Brendan just came out with a new cookbook, Whole Foods to Thrive, which I am really excited to explore because the recipes seem much more creative and include a lot of recipes from established raw restaurants including Live Food Bar in Toronto, Gorilla Food in Vancouver and one of my new finds, Thrive Juice Bar in Waterloo (sadly, they didn’t share the recipe for their awesome pad thai).
These are definitely a healthy energy bar, filled with nuts, seeds, blueberries, lemon juice and carob powder. The texture is softer than what I usually expect from my cycling snacks, but Brendan is a big proponent of your mouth and stomach doing the least amount of work while fueling up during exercise. I found them too soft to transport a bunch of them with me while biking, but they are better at room temperature after a work-out or as a mid-day snack when the munchies come!
This is my submission to both Ricki and Kim’s vegan SOS challenge featuring carob.
Thrive’s Carob Blueberry Energy Bars
1 cup dates
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup soymilk powder
1/4 cup ground flaxseeds
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/4 cup carob powder (cocoa powder would be great too for a more chocolaty flavour)
3 tbsp maca, optional
1/2 cup cooked buckwheat
1/2 cup frozen blueberries, divided
1. Process all ingredients until reasonably smooth, except buckwheat and 1/4 cup frozen blueberries in food processor. Knead in buckwheat and blueberries by hand. The mixture will be sticky. Form into balls and freeze until needed. Personally I prefer these warmed to room temperature.
Makes 16 1.5″ balls.
the taste space 
I bet those really would give a huge boost of energy–too bad they were too soft to take with you! (I might be tempted to knead in some protein powder both to thicken and pump up the protein.) The combination of carob and blueberries is really unusual–thanks so much for submitting this to this month’s SOS Challenge! 🙂
Hey Ricki, Maybe the protein powder was the problem with the texture. The original recipe called for protein powder but I substituted soymilk powder since it was the closest thing I could find in my house. 😉
I bet these would be perfect for long runs! Gah, riding up those hills sounds AWFUL (in an adrenaline-rich kind of way)! But probably necessary. I know you guys are going to rock the route to Kingston!
They do look very healthy and beautiful and remind me of a certain kind of dry fruit truffles I make sometimes. I have never used the carob flour. As usually I discover very mysterious ingredients on your blog! Thank you for this recipe! (By “maca” you mean the Jewish flat bread called also “matzo bread”? I have been making a very easy almond cookies recipe with it!)
Maca is new to me too , Sissi, but it has a nice malty flavour. There is more information about it here: http://altmedicine.about.com/od/herbsupplementguide/a/maca.htm
Thank you, I have never heard about it before! Very interesting!
[…] generous servings, so I was able to enjoy the leftovers. The soup doubled as a perfect meal while cycling last weekend. With the long distances, I prefer to eat more liquid-based foods (ie, soup! homemade sports drink! […]
What a great recipe – energy & nutrient packed. My kind of food! I host a weekly link-up event at my blog called Slightly Indulgent Tuesday – I’d love for your to join in. Though my blog is gluten-free & refined sugar-free the recipes shared don’t have to be. They should just be healthier in some way. Your spin on food would be a great addition to the other recipes there.
Hugs,
Amy
[…] have been experimenting with more unusual ingredients lately: maca, delicious! Carob, yup. And now goji berries. Can I blame Tess’ new cookbook all about superfoods? Perhaps… […]
Yaey I love energy bars/balls like this. I look forward to seeing the other ones you’ll be posting.
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Those sound great with blueberries! I just used some soaked buckwheat groats in a raw scone recipe and it was delicious! I wonder if you could also use it with these? 😀
I think the original recipe called for soaked and dehydrated buckwheat but I can`t remember now… I will have to investigate because the dehydrated buckwheat tastes so different. 🙂