I’ve decided to take the current period of quarantine and social distancing as an opportunity to evaluate my health. I wanted to examine my eating habits, my sleep schedule, and my daily routine in order to assess my physical and mental condition and determine the optimal conditions to keep myself healthy and happy. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought for the past few weeks, and now believe that I’ve made an important discovery to optimize my physical and mental performance.

Here’s the the daily regimen: eat one of these bars after lunch, eat one bar after dinner, and eat one bar after breakfast, too, for good measure. Then, consume additional bars on an as needed basis throughout the day. They are surprisingly useful for a number of functions.

Need to power through a history essay? Eat a bar. Don’t want to do your laundry? Eat a bar. Missing human contact? Eat a bar. They’ll give you the strength to do what needs to be done.

I’ve now made five slightly different iterations of these bars. They’ve all been good, but the fifth batch, featuring the addition of an egg, yielded the best texture and consistency. This recipe is very forgiving, so experimentation is recommended.

Ingredients:

Steps:

• Mix all dry ingredients (flour, oats, sugar, salt, baking powder)
• Preheat oven to 350F. Melt butter in a 9×12 inch baking pan. Once melted, use a small amount to butter the pan. Mix most of the butter into the dry ingredients
• Add peanut butter, vanilla extract, and the egg. Mix well
• Press the mixture into the baking dish
• Bake on 350F for 15-20 minutes or until the it begins to lightly brown
• Remove from oven and place two large bars or a bag of chocolate chips on the hot cookie base. Return to the oven for a few minutes. When the chocolate is soft, spread evenly over the cookie base using a butter knife or spoon. Cut the bars before they cool.

Results and Notes:

• On Texture: If you want a more brittle granola bar like texture, do not use an egg. For a more cake-like texture, add a few tablespoons of milk or other liquid
• On Chocolate: Special Dark Hershey bars work well. Two big chocolate bars are adequate to evenly cover the pan. A 12 oz bag of chocolate chips should also do the trick. If chocolate isn’t your thing, cinnamon and sugar sprinkles are also a nice topping.
• Pro-tip: Don’t forget to save some of the uncooked, pre-egg mixture to just eat with a spoon. I’m actually tempted to just make mix up a batch and eat the whole thing raw.

In Other News

I saw a dog chasing a moose yesterday: