Homemade Chocolate Lara Bars

 I love Lara bars... or at least the chocolate peanut butter lara bars--- how can you not?   I especially love what Lara bars are made of ...  and while I'd never actually had a plain old chocolate lara bar,  when I saw this one on pinterest, and saw that it would take like five minutes, I knew I had to try it.

And I am obsessed.

I decided to throw some oats into the second half of the mixture to see if it turned out anything like these chocolate oat bars I used to eat when I worked at Good Earth in Provo a million years ago.  I'm sure they're not as good as I remember.... but they're one of those memories on a pedestal.  Anyway, that's what the little balls are.  I thought they'd be an easy little bite-sized treat.  They were good--- but they're better withOUT the oats.  And so easy.  Especially if you have a huge thing of dates in your fridge from Costco that you were already worried you weren't going to get through....

Anyway-- here's the recipe:

• 1 cup walnuts 
• 1 and 1/3 cups pitted dates 
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3-4 T cocoa powder- (I did 4)
• optional: a pinch of salt
• optional: chocolate chips or even a piece of a chocolate bar or baking chocolate (of course I did, I used mini chocolate chips because they were handy and oh so cute.)

Blend all the ingredients, using a food processor, Magic Bullet, etc. (No need to blend the dates first; I just blend everything all at once in my MB. Form into bars. It might help to put dough in a plastic bag and close the bag, then shape into a bar. (Feel free to experiment with different nut combinations. I often sub almonds or cashews for some of the walnuts.)

Just felt like I should share.  I'm hoping maybe just maybe it could replace my most recent cookie dough problem. ... maybe.