No Bake Chocolate Almond Zesty snack bars, 2 ways. vegan glutenfree

I have these bunch of amazing almond milk ice creams sitting to be eaten.. And if you know anything about Seattle, you know that is has been crazy cold and random snow since the past 2 weeks! Can you blame me for not touching them ice creams. So I decided to use some of those up in other ways, like making a melted ice cream cake. I looked at the Almond Mocha fudge and cherry amaretto and picked the Almond mocha that day.

For a melted ice cream cake, a major part of the wet is substituted with the melted ice cream. I dint add much oil or spices. The cake was half whole wheat, half almond flour with a good load of melted Almond mocha Ice-cream! The cake came out fabulous and was so soft and smelled amazing.. A small slice was cut and tasted and .. eh.. I had forgotten to add any Sugar! Yes, mishaps do happen in this kitchen. You just dont know about them, because there is a filter on what ends up on the blog ;) Maybe I should let hubbs post once in a while about some of those.. Almost none of the stuff gets thrown away though. I was planning on making some no bake snack bars for hubbs, and made half the batch with the cake crumbs instead. The cake ones can be rolled up into balls and covered with nuts, spices, coconut flakes or cocoa powder.. but really I am quite lazy when it comes to making small individual ball things.. so bars they are...

The bars on the blue purple board are the cake ones. The cake crumbs absorb the flowy chocolate a little, so you get a crumbly texture. I plan to make a Cherry amaretto or butter pecan cake with the So Delicious Ice creams again. So keep an eye out for those.:)

You can still enter to win Kathy Freston's book The Lean on yesterday's Giveaway post.! Leave a comment on the post.

The almond bars have a few ingredients. Crushed almonds and rice krispies, spices and zest for a hint of interesting tastes in each bite, and melted chocolate! You can add any thing to this recipe really. More nuts, Seeds, coconut flakes, Protein powder, candied ginger(yumm), Oats, (endless list..:))

More Sweet snack/breakfast collection here.

Ingredients:

To melt:

1/4 cup chocolate(chips, chopped bar, dark. I use enjoy life semi sweet or whole foods vegan)

2-3 Tablespoons raw sugar or other sweetener(depends on sweetness of the chocolate)

2 Tablespoons Coconut milk or non dairy milk/creamer(I used SoDelicious plain coconut milk),

1 Tablespoon agave syrup

1/2 teaspoon coconut oil

Dry:

1/2 cup coarsely ground almonds

1/2 + 1/4 cup coarsely crushed rice krispies

1 teaspoon lemon zest

a generous pinch of spices of choice(I am currently on a ginger and clove binge)

a generous pinch of salt

Method:

Keep all the dry ingredients ready, mix 1/2 cup almonds and 1/2 cup rice krispies, spices, salt and zest and keep aside. Keep additional 1/4 cup crushed rice krispies in a bowl too

In a pan, add the coconut milk, agave and sugar/sweetener and coconut oil.

Heat on low and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Add the chocolate and mix continuously for a few seconds and switch off heat.

Keep stirring till all of it is melted into a nice flowy glaze.

Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Add more krispies if needed to make a stiff doughy mix.

Oil hands and pat this mix down on parchment into thickness desired. I made a 1/2 inch thick, 8 by 8 inch somewhat square.

Refrigerate for an hour, cut, eat!

For the Cake version:

Crumble up the cake into fine crumbs (Used a little more than 1 cup crumbs) instead of the dry ingredients. If the cake is already sweet enough, skip the sugar in the melted chocolate mix. Add dry to wet, spread, cool, cut, eat.

These bars are headed to Glutenfree Wednesdays, Ricki's wellness weekend , Allergy Free Wednesdays, Sadhana's Cook Eat Delicious Desserts, originally at CookEatDelicious.com, Hearth and Soul blog hop, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, and Potluck at Lifeologia.

Feature of the week. Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals in Bangalore, India started by the amazing Dr Devi Shetty, for bringing healthcare to the ones who cannot afford it.

Narayana Hrudayalaya headquartered in the city of Bengaluru, India, is one of India's largest multi-specialty hospital chains. The Bangalore cardiac unit of Narayana Hrudayalaya is one of the world's largest pediatric heart hospitals. It is the brainchild of the renowned cardiac surgeon, Dr. Devi Shetty. Narayana Hrudayalaya also receives patients from outside India, and it has created a record of performing nearly 15,000 surgeries on patients from 25 foreign countries.It is also a renowned centre for telemedicine and it offers this service free of cost.

From the recent Fastcompany article-" Before becoming one of India’s best-known health-care entrepreneurs, Shetty was its best-known heart surgeon. He was interrupted in surgery one day during the 1990s by a request to make a house call. "I said, 'I don’t make home visits,' " Shetty says, "and the caller said, 'If you see this patient, the experience may transform your life.' " Which is exactly what happened. The request was from Mother Teresa. Inspired by the iconic nun’s work with the poor, he then set out to create a hospital to deliver care based on need, not wealth. No doubt she would be pleased by the results. "One lesson she taught me," he says, quoting a saying he keeps framed in his office, "is 'Hands that sew are holier than lips that pray.' "

To find out more about his journey and how the hospital works, read This article on Wharton, this on FastCompany, and this on WSJ on how it is bringing healthcare to the masses.