These snack bars are amazingly easy to make, delicious, and filled with nourishing ingredients. They make me wonder why I ever tried store-bought snack bars, like Lara bars or Kind bars. This recipe was inspired by a recipe from Nourished Kitchen. Apple-raisin snack bars: 1 cup pecans 1 cup dried apples 1 cup raisins 1/4 tsp Celtic sea salt 1/2 tsp cinnamon, optional (I tend to like the clean flavor of the fruit without the cinnamon, but will occasionally add cinnamon to spice it up) unrefined coconut oil, for greasing your hands Soak pecans in water with a pinch of sea salt for 12-24 hours*. Rinse and drain well. Pulse nuts in a food processor until ground pretty well (but not too long or they'll start turning into nut butter). Dump nuts into a bowl. Then place apples, raisins, salt, and optional spices in food processor and let it whir until well-combined and chopped. This will take longer than you think, but just let it keep going around and around. Then add back ground nuts and whir until well-combined. Dump it all onto a piece of wax paper. Then rub a bit of oil onto your hands to keep them from sticking to the mixture. Use your hands to do any last mixing necessary to get a consistent mixture, then form the mixture into a mound. Refrigerate for a couple hours, and then cut into pieces. You can also vary the nuts and fruit to make other types. Lemon blueberry is delicious (made using almonds, dates, and dried blueberries with a little lemon zest). *Soaking the nuts neutralizes phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors. Phytic acid blocks absorption of minerals such as calcium and magnesium; enzyme inhibitors make nuts hard to digest. This recipe is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist, Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade, and Pennywise Platter at The Nourishing Gourmet!