#gem hunt

I've got another recipe you probably NEVER thought you'd see! Remember when Connie had her first mission in "Gem Hunt"? She was very prepared...with nutritious PROTEIN BARS!

They are called "PROTES."

I will teach you to make an excellent protein bar! From scratch! No cooking!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups rolled oats

55 grams whey protein (or other protein powder)--please use vanilla or chocolate

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 cup smooth peanut butter (or any nut butter)

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup almond milk (or any kind of milk)

3 ounces semisweet chocolate chips, melted

Equipment-wise, you will also need a food processor, a scale, measuring cups and spoons, and a square 8 x 8 pan lined with parchment paper.

Directions:

You start by grinding the oats into a flour texture in the food processor. It should have just the steel blade attachment.

After that, it's largely just adding stuff and processing, ingredient by ingredient.

Add the protein powder. Process.

Add the cocoa. Process.

Add the peanut butter. Process.

Add the syrup. Process.

Then add in the milk. It should start to stick together a lot. You may have to scrape it off the edges of the container to get it thoroughly mixed.

Then, melt the chocolate and get that in the mix. Process until it's at a consistency that you can press into shapes and crumbs don't flake off. (If it's too dry, you can add a little more milk, splash by splash. I didn't need to, but you can.)

With a spatula or clean hands, press the mixture into your pan evenly. There is no baking. Put it in the refrigerator to solidify for about an hour.

While you wait, if you wanna be real cute about it, design some "PROTES" wrappers like in the show!

(I used yellow crayon on mailing labels and colored over it with a red marker.)

When the bars are ready, you can take them out of the fridge and cut them into individual bars. I recommend cutting into quarters, then cutting each quarter into 3 bars.

Wrap them in wax paper or press-n-seal food wrap and (optionally) apply the wrapper art.

These have milk/chocolate and are uncooked, so they should be stored in the fridge. They can go on journeys with you, but eat them the same day they aren't in the fridge.

To go with the protein bars...remember in the episode, Connie harvested pine needles and boiled them to make a tea? So she and Steven could drink it for Vitamin C and not get scurvy ("like a pirate")?

I got some pine needles in the wild while I was at a party.

I very thoroughly washed the needles and used a strainer to keep track of them.

Then I cut the needles to a manageable size and set some water to boil.

That's literally all there is to Connie's pine tea!

I heated mine until a boil hit, lowered to simmer, and let steep. Then I strained it into cups.

Keep in mind it does not taste good. I do not recommend this tea. Neither do Connie and Steven.

Smells nice and piney, though!

(I didn't have cute frog cups so I used a pig butt cup and a SU star cup.)

Nom.

Congrats! You're a wilderness survivor!