at the track & trying another KIND bar recipe

Oh hello there. Today’s 5:45 am sunrise, seen at the end of my run:

I realized that I took almost the exact same photo yesterday! Look at the difference. Each day is special

Did you catch what I said earlier, by the way? Sunrise seen at the END of my run. Today was a super early one — I met up with my friend Lizzie for a dark-o-clock track date.

We are both crazy for waking up so early, but at least we can be crazy together. On the menu: Three one-mile dashes with a one-minute rest in between each one. Short and sweet!

It was really encouraging to have a buddy to run in circles with today. Our finish times: 6:35, 6:37, 6:32. Zoom.

I was proud of my track times, but I’m even more proud to share this amazing news: Over the weekend, I got significantly closer to perfecting the KIND bar recipe. (See attempts 1 and 2)

After dabbling in homemade granola bars for a few years, I thought I was pretty close to being a pro. BUT THEN I found THIS LADY. The Yummy Life’s homemade KIND bar recipe does NOT mess around!

Monica’s super in-depth, step-by-step instructions are very specific. But if you can stick with it, the bars turn out pretty well.

Over the past few weeks I’ve attempted her recipe three times. (Because I am crazy.) The first batch of bars I made were a total fail. The second batch were pretty good. And the third batch was pretty much perfect!

After making them a few times, I’ve realized that there are three parts of the recipe that you MUST do perfectly, or else the bars will either crisp up too much where they break apart, or get so goopy that they won’t hold together.

1) heat the honey/rice syrup to EXACTLY 360 degrees F (I had to buy a candy thermometer to do so); 2) stir the syrup & bar ingredients QUICKLY; and 3) use a metal pan, not a glass one. I don’t know why, but the bars I make in my metal cake pan turned out better than those I tried in my glass pan.

Just in case anyone is actually going to attempt these bars and was looking for insider secrets Let me tell you, this blog is full of incredible insights.

The only challenge that I’m still facing is the slight stickiness of the bars. They tend to stick a bit to each other and to the foil I’m wrapping them in. For this last batch, I gave them a dust of flour which seemed to help a bit.

FYI, according to Monica, these homemade bars come out at 44 cents per bar, which is less than half the price of a store-bought KIND bar. That means that I have more money to buy shoes with. (Anthony I hope you are not reading this post.)

Ok friends, I’m off to start this day. Considering I have been awake for like five hours already, I feel like an 8 pm bedtime sounds more than appropriate.

• Do you make your own granola bars? If so, what’s your recipe?
• How early do you usually wake up?
• If you saved 70 cents on every dollar you spent, what would you do with all your extra cash?!