Energy bars are big business nowadays. Long confined to the pages of cycling catalogs and the shelves of health‑food stores, these pricey descendants of Space Food Sticks and granola bars can now be found in almost every HyperMart. And the range of products has proliferated astonishingly as the market for them has grown. You can buy bars tailored to the needs of women athletes, bars to sustain you through a long workout, even bars to help you recover from your exertions. But what you can’t buy — at least in my experience — is bars that taste good. A case in point: I recently found myself on the receiving end of a sample package of Clif Bars. (I don’t usually accept product samples, but these were a gift from my brother, who’d picked them up at a bike race he covered.) Two of the bars were labeled “Chocolate Brownie”; the third was “Black Cherry Almond.” That got my attention. I love chocolate brownies, and I’m very partial to cherries and almonds, too. How could I go wrong? Judging by their wrappers, these were the bars I’d always been waiting for. Or so I thought.

Reality soon intruded. I’d tucked the Black Cherry bar into the handlebar bag of my amphibious bike, while a Chocolate Brownie bar went into the snack pocket of my rucksack. And not long afterward, I found myself sitting in a chill drizzle on the shore of a local beaver pond. I needed quick energy, so I reached into my pack pocket and grabbed the Chocolate Brownie bar, congratulating myself on my foresight. But a string of disappointments followed hard on the heels of self‑congratulation. The first letdown came just as soon as I’d peeled away the colorful paper wrap. To my eye, this particular Clif Bar had a rather off‑putting appearance. In fact, it bore a close resemblance to raccoon scat. Still, I was hungry, and looks aren’t everything. So I took a first tentative bite. Disappointment piled on disappointment. The bar’s texture was as unappetizing as its appearance, suggesting nothing so much as crumbled chalk embedded in tar. And the flavor? Well, I’m happy to say it didn’t taste anything like raccoon scat. At least, I assume it didn’t. (There are limits to my curiosity. I draw the line at eating raccoon scat.) Unfortunately, it didn’t taste like any chocolate brownie I’d ever eaten, either.

I decided then and there that I could do better. So when I returned home I went straight to the test kitchen and began experimenting. And my efforts ultimately proved successful. I’ve now added a number of flavorful, nutritious bars to my repertoire of fast foods for the backcountry. I don’t call them energy bars, though. Because cash is tight in these rather austere times, and because my DIY bars deliver good taste at a low cost, I call them Credit Crunch Bars… Read more…

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Once upon a time, they were just candy bars or snack cakes or granola bars. Now they’re “energy” bars. And they’re big business. Incessantly promoted by a seemingly endless queue of celebrity athletes, they command astonishing prices. Of course, if the taste were commensurate with the cost, they might well be worth the exorbitant tariff. But while I certainly haven’t sampled every energy bar on the market—that would be a full-time job for someone with a hedge-fund manager’s disposable income—the ones that I have tried invariably disappointed. So I figured I could come up with something better.

And I think I did. Here are two recipes that deliver both taste and nutrition—carbs for quick energy, plus a dollop of high-quality protein for maintenance and just enough fat to keep you going over the long haul. They’re easy to make, too. Why? Because they’re no-bake bars. You won’t even have to open your oven door. Just mix dry ingredients with a warm binder, spoon into a lightly oiled baking pan, cover with waxed paper, press down, and chill. Then cut into bars and wrap for storage. That’s all there is to it. Give them a try yourself and see what you think.

No-Bake Peanut Butter-Apple Bars

Ingredients:

•  Cooking oil
•  1¼ cups puffed brown rice
•  1 cup uncooked old-fashioned oats
•  2 tablespoons flax seeds
•  ¼ cup chopped dried apples
•  ¼ cup finely cut walnuts
•  ½ teaspoon salt
•  ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
•  ¼ teaspoon cardamom
•  ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

•  ¹⁄₃ cup maple syrup
•  ½ cup peanut butter
•  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

The fine print: Oil an 8-inch-square baking dish very sparingly and set to one side. Mix the puffed rice, oats, seeds, apples, walnuts, salt, and spices in a large bowl. Now put the maple syrup and peanut butter in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat, stirring all the while. When the syrup-peanut butter mix is smooth and uniform—this is the binder I mentioned earlier—remove the pot from the heat and add the vanilla extract. Then pour the still-warm, syrupy mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until the binder coats everything evenly. Next, scrape the contents of the bowl into your oiled baking dish, using a metal spoon to even things out.

Now cut a piece of waxed paper just wide enough to cover the dish and place it over the mixture. Press down on the waxed paper, compacting and leveling the contents of the baking dish. Once you have a dense, uniform cake, chill for an hour in the fridge, leaving the waxed paper in place. When thoroughly chilled, cut into squares or bars with a sharp knife and wrap each piece individually in waxed paper before returning the bars to the fridge. (If you’ll be keeping the bars longer than a week, freeze them.)

Heading out? Just grab a handful of your no-bake bars and go. What could be easier?

Not a fan of peanut butter? Then try…

Fruity Wheat and Oat No-Bake Bars

Ingredients:

•  Cooking oil
•  1¾ cups old-fashioned oats
•  ½ cup chopped walnuts
•  ½ cup soy nuts, crushed
•  ¼ cup sesame seeds
•  ¼ cup flax seeds
•  ½ teaspoon salt
•  1½ cups puffed wheat cereal
•  1 cup dried cherries
•  ½ cup dried cranberries

•  1 cup honey
•  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

As before, oil an 8-inch-square baking dish and place the dry ingredients in a large bowl. I toast the oats, walnuts, soy nuts, and seeds on a large cookie sheet in a preheated 400-degree Fahrenheit oven for five minutes first. This yields a more robust flavor, but if you don’t want to go to the trouble, or if you’re determined to hold me to my promise that you won’t have to open your oven door, don’t bother. If you do elect to toast, however, don’t wander off. Burning won’t improve the flavor!

Next, pour the honey into a small saucepan and warm over medium heat while stirring constantly. When the honey offers little resistance to the spoon, add the vanilla extract, stir, and pour the still-warm liquid over the dry ingredients. Now you’ll need to work fast, before the honey cools. Stir the sticky mixture in the bowl with a metal spoon until everything is evenly coated with honey, then scrape the contents into the prepared baking dish. Use your spoon to spread the mixture out evenly, cover with waxed paper, and press down. Chill for an hour (or longer) in the fridge, leaving the waxed paper in place, before cutting into squares and wrapping each one individually in waxed paper. If you’ll be eating the bars within the week, store in the fridge in a tightly sealed plastic bag. If you’ll be keeping them longer, however, freeze them, removing only what you’ll want for each outing.

No-bake bars. They don’t carry any celebrity endorsements, but they’ll help you go the distance—and they taste good, to boot. I think that’s the best recommendation of all. What about you?

Comments? Questions? Then click here.

My day hasn’t properly begun till I’ve downed my first cup of coffee. And I make that coffee the old‑fashioned way. By hand. No sputtering grampus of an electric drip pot for me. I use a French press. This fussiness helps to explain why I wasn’t entirely happy with my camp coffee until quite recently, when I bought a GSI Personal Java Press. Now my coffee in camp is as good as my coffee at home.

My first cup from the Java Press was a eureka moment of sorts. I figured I’d found the Philosopher’s Stone of camp coffee, the sine qua non, the nonpareil, the… Well, you get the point. I was convinced that the Java Press was The Answer to the paddling coffee‑lover’s prayers, and I couldn’t see why anyone would want (or need) anything else. I was wrong, of course. Serious coffee drinkers are fiercely independent, and they’re not shy about setting forth their views — or even laying down the law for others, come to that. (Maybe it’s the caffeine!)

In any event, my Java Press column garnered more than the usual amount of mail, each letter outlining the writer’s take on the best method for making good coffee in camp. And (with one exception) no two writers agreed. It’s like I just said: Coffee drinkers are an independent bunch. I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I’ve still had to rethink the conclusion of my Java Press piece. Perhaps I didn’t discover the Philosopher’s Stone of camp coffee, after all. In fact, the evidence of my mailbag suggests that there are as many Answers to the question of how to make good coffee in camp as there are coffee‑drinking paddlers.

Which is why I’m writing this. If you, too, find it hard to start your engine in the morning without a jolt of java, but if you haven’t yet found a way to make a perfect cup of coffee when you’re camped at the water’s edge, you’ll want to keep reading. There’s a whole world of choices out there, and thanks to the generosity of In the Same Boat‘s readers, that cornucopia of choice is about to be spread before you. Try one reader’s suggestion or try them all. See what works for you. My opinions don’t matter. It’s the taster’s choice, pure and simple.

OK. Let’s begin with café filtre… Read more…