We’ve all been there. You’ve just finished your long run, the effect of your last Gu ended 2 playlists ago, you don’t have time for a real meal because you might certainly lose your job if you don’t get to work stat, and so you go trolling around the pantry in hopes of finding some bar type thing to hold you over until you can resolve the current crisis. You fumble past the rice cakes, take a left turn at the canned pinto beans, pause too long at the bag of M&Ms, and finally finally you feel that rectangular bar shape. You grab the bar and jet out the door. You have been momentarily saved from hunger and you are very relieved!!!... But, alas that relief is short-lived. As you ravenously tear open the package and bite into the bar, you are devastated at the taste! It’s another generic fruit/nut/chocolate/protein bar with little flavor, a boatload of sugar, and other ingredients that you cannot pronounce.

Well, if you are tired of buying over-priced, unremarkable, extra-sweet energy bars, join the club. Here’s a recipe that will save you tons of dough, is shamelessly easy to make, is gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegan, and can be modified in an infinite number of ways to make it just how you like it. We suggest you whip up a batch (makes about a dozen), bag them up individually, and then all week long you will have no excuses for going hungry after a long run. Enjoy.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 ripe bananas
• 1 cup peanut butter
• ¼ cup honey
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 1-2 cups oats
• 1 cup nuts/seeds
• (You can add dates for more sweetness, raisins for energy, chocolate chips for pizazz, sunflower seeds, craisins, granola, etc etc etc.)

• Blend together bananas, peanut butter and honey (a hand mixer makes this very easy)
• Add in cinnamon, vanilla and salt
• Fold in oats, nuts, seeds and anything else you want
• Use a spoon to make into balls
• Place onto greased baking sheet
• Bake at 350 degrees for ~30 min

For this batch, we added chopped almonds and chia seeds. Boom.