Attempting homemade RX Bars~a synchronicity and the gooey mess

I am always one to stop and ponder the synchronicities of life. I love the seemingly unconnected connections that make aspects of life stand out. Synchronicity alludes to the mysteries of life and keeps me stickin around for more.

Unfortunately this is not going to be some metaphysical post about my experience, wonderings and understanding of such things, but it will include an egg white synchronicity.

The other night I was browsing my feed and read a post by one of my favorite people on steemit, @helenmunch (she's pretty amazing btw), https://steemit.com/sixweekhealth/@helenmunch/today-s-lunch-a-green-smoothie-is-my-week-one-entry-in-the-six-week-health-health-challenge .

In her post she talked about using egg whites in her morning smoothie, something I had never thought to do. I always am looking for protein powders that are bearable additions to my morning smoothie, but egg whites?!?, how had this never entered my mind?! As neither of us like waste we were brainstorming ideas for what to do with the discarded egg yolks. It would be a shame to not put them to use as well.

Simultaneously my Mother had been shopping for something called an RXBAR for a care package that she was sending my niece who is off at college. Another thing that I had never heard of. It's apparently a protein bar that is made with very minimal ingredients. The base for all of their flavors is egg whites, cashews, almonds, and dates. I thought that sounded great. My Mom wound up giving me a sample and turns out they are pretty tasty. I am not a fan of single serving on the go meals, it's the packaging that gets me, so I decided to see if I could find a recipe hack online. Of course I found one. I chose to try out the Pumpkin Spice flavor.

One of the ingredients, the egg whites, actually happen to be a powdered egg white. I knew powdered egg whites existed but thought they were something fancy that was mainly an industrial ingredient and hard to acquire. As seems to be the norm in my reality, I was wrong. A quick trip to Trader Joe's and I was hooked up. Not only did I have the ingredient for my experiment but also my new found protein for smoothies.

In addition to the base of 1 cup Cashews, 1 cup Almonds, 1 cup Powdered Egg Whites, 1 1/2 cups dates, and 1/2 t. salt, to make the Pumpkin Spice variety I also added 6T. Pumpkin Puree and 2t. Pumpkin Spice Powder. Pretty simple, but then things get interestingly gooey. Let the food processing commence....

First blend the two nuts until they look like this.

Next add the dates until they come to a similar consistancy. After that you add the remaining ingredients. It is suggested to then blend for about 2 to 3 minutes until aforementioned gooey consistency is attained. When I say gooey...this is the true dictionary definition.

They suggested to line a 9x9 baking dish with the goop but I thought I would try something else. I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper and plopped the glob down. I tried to flatten it out the best I could and then took a second layer of parchment to top it so I could roll it out. It sounded so easy but turned out to be a true pain in the you know what.

It did work though despite a few curse words and is now sitting in the fridge to set up. If nothing else I know from a few little taste tests that it will be at the very least edible. It doesn't look like it will be as manageable as the store bought bars so may give it a little time in a low heat oven to firm up. It holds some promise as a base for future bars as well. I look forward to experimenting with other additions to create unique flavors of my own. The first that comes to mind is cardamom and orange.

All in all I consider this to be a success. The true excitement though had to be the synchronicity between the post by @helenmunch and the bars my Mom was sending my niece then come full circle into a solution. I'm really looking forward to using the powder in smoothies and am anxious to look up other recipes. Egg whites are such a great protein(thank you chickens).

On a side note I found it kind of silly that I said I didn't want to buy single serving bars because of the packaging waste and then commenced to use about 3 feet of parchment paper. My justification for this....although not wholly legit, is that I found the parchment paper at a tag sale. Something that quite likely may have been discarded if I didn't pick it up. A lot of people seem weirded out about buying stuff like this second hand...not me :)

If you have the time and are interested in sustainability and penny pinching I highly encourage you to check out garage sales, thrift stores and estate sales for similar finds. It's a great way to cut down on the waste stream and save a buck or two; four to be exact for this find.

Thanks for reading. Would love to hear about any recipe hacks you found or any silly little synchronicities you have experienced.