Nice Bars For Better Snacking

Matt and I returned this week from our first megavacation together since May 2019.  

Lost Trail Hot Springs was perfect on a hot summer day.

I went on a solo megavacation last year, but the pandemic made it impossible for Matt to get any significant amount of time off work down at the health department.  In April we got away for four nights as we headed west to celebrate my Dad's 65th birthday.  That was the longest Matt had been away from home in more than a year.  This is, it probably goes without saying, highly irregular for travel-junkies like us.  This latest trip was nine nights, thus qualifying for Megavacation status.  :)

Having a little sing-a-long at camp while Matt cooked dinner.

And oh, what a magavacation it was!!!  The fact that it was overdue might have actually made it even better.  We more deeply savored every moment.  

The Kitchen Dwellers at Pine Creek Lodge

We saw kicked it off with three nights of of bluegrass with the Kitchen Dwellers at a sweet little outdoor venue.  We rented a nearby cabin with our buddy Josh and his girlfriend, Joelle.  After the concert weekend Matt and I meandered across the "chin" of Montana camping, birding, rockhounding, and soaking.  Eventually we ended up in Missoula so we could buy a dozen of the most incredible (and vegan) doughnuts before heading eastward and homeward bound again.  Oh, boy was it an epic and awesome adventure.

An assortment of Veera doughnuts.  MMmmmmmmmmm!

We prepped a lot of food before we left, from mains to snacks.  This included my fabulous and vaguely healthy candy bar creation:  The Nice Bar.  

A pair of Nice Bars, one flipped over so you can see the back.

Traveling in the car I get ridiculously snacky.  I have been conditioned to associated car travel with obscenely tasty junk food and so turn into a bottomless pit the second we hit the road.  I suspect it is because we often were allowed to get a little treat when we stopped for gas on the road trips of my youth and I continued this practice well into my adulthood.  Plus, crunchy things help me stay awake when the consistent vibrations are lulling me into a car coma.  (My mom's travel mantra was that "sleeping will make the trip go faster" and to this day I get soooooooo sleepy when I take long car rides.)  So, yeah, the roadtrip munchies are a serious beast for me.

It was Josh and Joelle's first time at Yellowstone Hot Springs, which felt heavenly after a night of dancing like a wild woman.  

These days I try to plan ahead for this eventuality by making/buying better snacking options ahead of time.  I base this off of Michael Pollan's advice against getting my fuel from the same place my car does.  So, coconut water to steer me clear of the Diet Pepsi, say, and Harvest Snaps pea crisps instead of chips.  Sunflower seeds instead of  Corn Nuts.  It doesn't keep me away from the Gardettos 100% of the time, but it is a healthier (and more cost-effective) strategy when we know we're going to be on the road.  

One of the many gorgeous sunsets we were blessed with on our travels.

Nice Bars are one of the yummy treats I like to make in advance.  They're another of my tightwad knockoff recipes, initially modeled off of the peanut butter and dark chocolate variety of Kind Bars.  I prefer my homemade version for several reasons particularly the lack of individual packaging waste, an increase in whole-food ingredients, and the fact I can alter the recipe in countless variations to suit what nuts and things I have on hand/my taste cravings.  As an added cherry on top, they're also cheaper.  

Hanging at the cabin.

While my snackyness mostly tends towards the savory, Nice Bars really hit the spot when my sweet tooth flares and I want candy.  Because, let's be real, it IS basically still candy, the syrup is cooked to the softball stage and everything.  But, you know, a relatively whole food candy.  Candy with protein and minerals at least, along with the sugar. Yum.

Matt and I took a teeny narrow-gauge tourist train from Virginia City to Nevada City.  It was quite charming.

I think Nice Bars are a super-duper chewy, nutty, sweet and satisfying little treat.  So there you have it.  Nice Bars for better road trip snacking. 

This is what the bars look like before the chocolate is applied and the bars cut into individual servings.

Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Nice Bars
1 1/2 cups raw, unsalted nuts/seeds of your choice--almonds, peanuts, pepitas, walnuts, cashews, etc.
1/2 cup puffed millet or rice
1 C rolled oats
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup brown rice syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons peanut butter*
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 tablespoon coconut oil

• Prepare a 9x13 baking sheet with a sheet of silicon parchment, regular parchment paper, or by lightly oiling it. 
• Toast the nuts in a cast-iron pan over medium for 5-10 minutes, until lightly toasted and fragrant.  
• Immediately remove the nuts from the pan to prevent them from burning since the cast-iron retains so much heat.
• Once the nuts are fairly cool combine them with the puffed grain and oats in a large bowl and set aside.
• In medium saucepan, combine honey, rice syrup, peanut butter, salt, and vanilla over medium-high heat. Stirring frequently, cook this syrup mixture until it reaches the softball stage (240 degrees F) on a candy thermometer.
• As quickly as possible, pour the syrup over the nut-and-grain mixture mixing until everything is evenly coated.
• Dump all of this sticky goodness onto the prepared baking sheet and press to an even, compact snack bar thickness.  
• I use a large spoon for the first 30 seconds since the mixture is quite hot, but once it isn't scalding I use my hands.  That seems to work best to achieve an even thickness.  Lightly oiling the spoon and hands will help prevent it all from sticking.  I use coconut oil.
• Melt the chocolate and the oil together on either the stovetop or microwave.
• Pour, drizzle, or spread a layer of melted chocolate over the entire batch of bars.
• Let this set up for 5-10 minutes, but don't let it cool completely**.
• Cut into desired size, typically I get about 20 bars from this recipe.
• If they're not going to be eaten within a week or so it might be a good idea to pop 'em in the fridge or freezer.
• We made ours a week in advance and froze them until our departure.

Notes:
* You can also use PB2-style powdered peanut butter as a way to reduce fat/calories.  Just add it with the dry ingredients instead of the wet.  I used to do that when I first started making these.  I don't keep PB2 on hand for anything else though so it is just easier for me to use regular peanut butter.

**If allowed to cool completely before cutting they sometimes don't cut quite as nicely.  This is totally aesthetic though.  They taste the same either way.  I don't really mind taking two half-bars for a snack instead of one whole bar.  

Matt digging garnets at Ruby Reservoir.