peanut butter cacao quinoa

So, uh… this is where I lose all credibility on this blog. This quinoa was supposed to be a granola bar.

On Saturday morning, I was all excited to think up a higher in protein granola bar since my muscles are all jacked and out of control (humor me). I went to work in the kitchen, thinking about my quinoa granola I have made in the past. I’ve made the granola, so why not the bars - Right?

 
RIGHT?!?!

Wrong.

I stuck these babies in the oven for 20 minutes, took them out, and they crumbled. No big deal, I thought to myself — I can just cook them for longer on a higher heat. That’ll do the trick. Uh, not so much.

I finally retrieved these “bars” from the oven, took a spoonful in delight, and declared them a breakfast item to be eaten with milk or yogurt. You see, I think I need a lesson in Baking 101 because baking a treat without any sort of binder will result in quinoa that falls apart instead of staying together. I seriously thought nothing of not using any sort of flax egg or real egg or sticky sweetener to keep these bad boys from crumbling under a slight (okay ravenous and not so gentle) touch.

Lucky for you, though, is the fact that this quinoa will take you 25 minutes less to make than it took me. Because in reality, you don’t really need to go through the extra step of sticking it in the oven for it to do nothing at all. I’m saving you all a big old waterworks fest on the floor of your kitchen when you figured out your recipe kindasortabutnotreally failed.

And if you’re looking for peanut flour for this recipe, you can find it all in my pantry when I freaked out last year that Trader Joe’s was discontinuing the good stuff. I’m ridiculous — and you can just substitute it with your favorite protein powder instead.

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Don’t forget to drizzle this with even more peanut butter. The last thing I would want to do is make my peanut butter feel left out of any breakfast or snack I consume.

I’ve been eating this as a snack, as a lunch, as a spoonful from the fridge as I am cooking dinner — you know, all the good times to sneak a bite.

I don’t even miss those darn granola bars I dreamed of.

Tagged as: breakfast, cacao nibs, gluten free, peanut flour, quinoa, recipe, snack, sweet quinoa, vegan