Larabars  

When I did Ironman Florida, I pretty much had my race nutrition program down pat. Every 15 minutes I would consume gatorade, then 1/2 Powerbar with water, more gatorade, then a gel. I had no problem ever in training. I love to eat, and this was part of the fun.

But after about 8 hours of racing, I was sick of gatorade, sick of Powerbars, and sick of gels. Next time around, I plan to supplement with some real food, and I am seriously going to give these Larabars a try.

I stumbled on to them at Primal Fusion, and from there, I linked onto Enlightened Cooking where the blog author Camilla talks about how she experimented with the mix until she got one that was close to the packaged product.
Camilla also has some variations, and also some other interesting information like a comparison of the nutritional information for Larabar, and Powerbars.

For quick reference, the recipe is below, but check out both of these blogs, they have some interesting info.

Recipe
Recipe Very Cherry Lara Bar adapted from Camilla
(makes 6 big bars or 10 tiny ones)
Ingredients:
1 cup of pitted roughly chopped dates
1 cup of dried cranberries
1 & 1/3 cup of raw almonds
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
oil for your hands

Equipment:
1) Food Processor
2) Big Mixing Bowl
3) Measuring instrumentation
4) Plastic Wrap

Directions:
1) Process the dates and cranberries until it forms a ball, your food proc
essor will make a weird noise
2) Remove fruit paste from food processor and place in mixing bowl. Do not clean food processor
3) Pulse almonds until it looks chopped (a few steps before it turns into almond meal)
4) Oil your hands. Knead the nuts and cinnamon powder into the fruit paste until the nuts are incorporated.
5) Shape into a brick and then slice and wrap.