Bacon just makes things taste better: Coconut chocolate bars

Just like acting and comic book illustration, cooking doesn’t come naturally to me. As a matter of fact, I have about five go-to meals plus one fancy-complicated Italian dish that I can make on demand – all of which meets my requirement of 30 minutes or less of prep-to-cook time. Everything else requires a recipe, complete focus, dedication, and a special occasion.

I love food. I love sweet foods even more. But my body doesn’t really process the carbs, fat and calories like it did when I was 20-something. So, nowadays, I make smarter food choices. Every now and then, though, I want something sweet that won't make me feel like I need to go HAM in the gym to compensate after eating.

Like, I really, really really don’t want to go HAM in the gym. The gym is not my first love, I’m not all about those gains and I although I’m proud of my progress and agree that CrossFit Guild is the best thing that’s happened to my health, I work out so I can eat. Period.

Hey, gotta be honest, right?

Anyway, Google is a great place to find low fat, low-cal recipes. You’ll notice I didn’t say gluten-free or Paleo. You can find those, too, but I’m not about that life - the recipes are time consuming and the ingredients are ... expensive and hard to find. I am about treating myself every once in a while and I get tired of apple slices and cheese.

So, I found this awesome recipe for coconut chocolate bars online. I know I could probably buy a box of low carb fruit bars/snacks at the store for $3; but why do that when I can spend $30 and make my own?

#logic

Make no mistake: people buy boxed foods because it’s cheaper than spending the money on ingredients that will yield one or two batches of anything.  And those batches usually amount to about 4-8 servings. At the price for ingredients, that averages out to about $2 per bar – not very cost effective, but great material for your Insta-game. But, I digress.

Before starting, it might be a good idea to divide the ingredients by how they need to be mixed. I didn’t do that and ended up putting maple syrup in the crust on the first batch. As it turns out, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, although it made things a whole lot sweeter.  I separated the ingredients according to the steps for convenience. 

Ingredients:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup quick cooking rolled oats

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp maple extract (optional)

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped (or almonds)

1/2 cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened

1/2 cup diced bacon bits

You can use pre-packaged bacon bits. I actually cooked bacon and shredded it to bits for this recipe.

Glaze:

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk (I used unsweetened)

3 tbsp maple syrup 

Okay, so you wanna pre-heat the oven to 350.

Lightly grease an 8x8 baking pan/dish.

In a bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs, oats and salt together.

Melt the butter and mix in the maple extract.

Add the mix to the oat and graham crackers.

Pour into the baking dish/pan and press into a flat, even layer.

Add a layer of chocolate chips.

Add a layer of pecans (or almonds).

Add an even layer of coconut.

Sprinkle a generous amount of BACON on top of all that business. 

Like ... a GENEROUS amount.

Then, in a separate bowl, you want to prep the maple glaze that goes on top:

Mix the condensed milk and maple syrup together.

Pour over the top of everything.

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

You will want to wait until it’s completely cooled before serving. I put mine in the fridge. 

Also, the recipe says it makes 25 squares. It does. But only if you want your squares to be one-bite sized. A more reasonable cut will get you about 16 squares.

I took these to work and my co-workers loved them.