Ingredient substitutes? Recipe substitute? Please help

seeker

Tue, Jun 19 2012, 12:02 pm

So I was thinking of making the "No-bake energy balls" from last week's Binah. I happen to have some time today, no-bake sounds quick enough, spur-of-the-moment kind of idea.

Then I realized it wants ingredients I don't have. Siiiiigh. And I'm not going shopping again any time soon.

The recipe wants oats, coconut flakes, peanut butter, wheat germ, chocolate chips, honey, vanilla extract. I am missing coconut flakes and wheat germ.

Alternatively, if the recipe won't be right without those ingredients, I wouldn't mind a different recipe along the same lines. Yesterday I hunted online for something healthy with oatmeal and peanut butter but nothing struck my fancy, I mostly just saw cookies (I already tried oatmeal cookies recently, they weren't that great and I want some variety before trying another oatmeal cookie) or bars that had a lot of margarine or were otherwise not at all healthy looking (to clarify, I'm not on any kind of special diet but I don't want to fill myself and my family with margarine, too much sugar, raw eggs, things like that.)

yamz

Tue, Jun 19 2012, 12:35 pm

If you post the exact recipe someone could probably help you. We just need to see the proportions of the ingredients. Are we talking about a tablespoon or two of wheat germ? You could probably just leave it out. If it's 1/2 cup, it should probably be replaced with something else.

If you would like to make something else, have you considered making your own trail mix or granola? The ingredient lists are usually pretty flexible for those recipes. You can easily swap out one dried fruit/nut/seed for another.

seeker

Tue, Jun 19 2012, 12:41 pm

It's 1/2 c wheat germ and 1 c coconut flakes. So yeah, a pretty big proportion. I don't want to post the whole recipe because I feel like that must be some kind of copyright violation.

Trail mix is not the answer for me, I'm looking for something of a bar/ball type that you can hold in your hand and nosh. Not little piecey like trail mix. Maybe I'll do this though it has tons more ingredients (ones I own though) and seems more complex overall; I was sort of aiming for quick n easy but... http://www.rd.com/food/oatmeal.....bars/

yamz

Tue, Jun 19 2012, 1:11 pm

What about homemade lara bars? Do a google search, you will get a lot of results. Lara bars are really tasty raw bars made primarily of fruits and nuts, but they are expensive.So people have devised homemade versions. Here is an example:
www.damyhealth.com/2011/03/how.....bars/

ra_mom

Tue, Jun 19 2012, 5:20 pm

if you have ground flax seeds, use that instead of the wheat germ.
if not, use ground nuts.
if all else fails, grind up oatmeal and use that.

for the coconut flakes, I'd say it's mostly for taste. add half the amount of called for in white chocolate chips, or some other form of flavoring/garnish.