Maybe it doesn’t look like much, but I’m quite proud of my little wallet. A repurposed mint tin with a sticker and a teabox label slapped on. A little rubber band action inside, and I’ve got all the money/ID/coffee card organization I need.
I’m a big fan of energy bars. They are a compact way to get some solid food in your stomach. From the vegan perspective, eating a Clif Bar, Odwalla Bar, Lara Bar, or whatever, is a good way to get some protein and nutrition. Of course there tend to be drawbacks to such convenience. The biggest for me: wrappers. Every bar comes in it’s own super-sealed foil/plastic landfill fodder. If you eat one a day, you can just imagine how much indestructible non-biodegradable trash you send to landfills and maybe the oceans. Hence, my new project: DIY energy bars.
My goals for making my own vegan food barzz:
It turns out this is pretty easy. If I can do it successfully, you can too. The beauty is that you can modify your recipe every time to try different flavors and ingredients. I have done a sweet cranberry bar, a simple banana-nut bar, and I’m excited to try more variations. Here’s a basic recipe:
Vegan Food Barzz:
Ingredients (all organic for me, and almost all from the bulk bins at Whole Foods):
Pick whatever ingredients you want from these lists, and in whatever amount seems good to you. I would say the key ingredients are rolled oats, dates, and nuts.
1. Chop nuts. I just use a knife, but a food processor might speed things up. 2. Preheat oven to 325-350ish (I just do whatever seems to work). 3. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Set aside. 4. Chop dates. I like to slice them lengthwise, then into smaller bits. 5. Mix wet ingredients in a small pot over low heat on the stovetop. Apple sauce, dates, peanut butter, etc. This makes the dates easier to work with, and gives you a consistent thick liquid. 6. Add wet mixture to dry ingredients. You want just enough wet stuff to make a thick dense batter. 7. Press batter into a small baking pan after greasing it with Earth Balance or coconut oil. It should be about a 1/2-inch thick. Think Clif Bars. 8. Bake for 25-40 minutes, until it looks good. 9. Allow to cool, cut ‘em up, throw ‘em in the fridge.
I know, this is a weak excuse for a recipe. But this is basically how I do it. I know what I want in the end and try to keep that in mind while I chop, mix, and bake. This may mean taking the pan out of the oven a few times to touch-test, experimenting with covering the pan or leaving uncovered. The point for me is to experiment, and have a nice little food brick to nourish me on those short work breaks. They are tasty, healthy, and come with a little pride every time you avoid throwing out a wrapper. My bars have tons of vegan Omega-3′s, protein, whole grains, and fruit. You can’t argue with that.
It took a while, but I finally finished my DIY bicycle fender made out of shampoo bottles. At first I thought one bottle cut in half and bolted together would do the trick, but it wasn’t long enough. I put it off a while, and then I had to add on that last segement a little haphazardly, due to a coming snow storm. I am pleased with the results, though. It’s nice to have a place to slap on all those stickers I have been saving, and so far it seems to be working!
It attaches to my seat post and frame with a bike pump attachment that just happens to snap perfectly in that spot. I had to secure it to the shampoo bottle base at 4 different spots to make sure it was straight and didn’t wobble.
I realize I could have bought a real fender for around ten bucks. But when I saw them on other bikes, I had one of those “I could make that” moments. It is just a piece of plastic, after all. It took some tinkering, but shampoo bottles were the perfect solution, I think. Voila: upcycled bike fender. Not the prettiest, but I’m proud to have turned potential garbage into something useful. Now I can get to work and back when the road is wet without having my whole backside soaked. And I can still recycle the fender whenever I am done with it.
