Nutrition : Fig & Honey Rice Snacks

If you are anything like me you eat a lot of energy bars. For a long while I have also been packing PB&J sandwiches for rides over 60miles. Recently I was inspired by films from the 2019 Tour of California where team chefs were interviewed about the rider diets and nutritional needs. They taled a lot about rice. This lead me to these snacks.

First off, this is not my recipe, its one that has been around for a while from the SCRATCH Labs company by chef Allen Lim & Biju Thomas. Scratch is a nutrition company and Alan is what I would call an “Athlete chef” – he been pro team level and knows how to make good and tasty athlete food.

Recipie

I choose the Fig And Honey Recipe because I know I like the flavours. There are many variants including savoury versions in their cook books.

Nutrition Skratch Portable Rice Bars
https://www.skratchlabs.com/collections/cookbooks

Cooking

Sushi cooker
Cook 2 dry cups of Calrose / Sushi rice,. This rice is sticky which is good for bars and quick to cook in 20mins.
chopped figs
Chop up a bunch of dried figs into pieces (smaller pieces to make compact bars.) These are about $7 per pound in the Wholefoods section. These’s about 3/4 of a cup here.
oven rack
Toast some chopped up Pecans (350 for 8 mins) There’s about 3/4 of a cup here. Pecans are around $13 per pound at Whole Foods.
mixing bowl
When the rice is cooked and still warm mix ingredients together. Add a little honey or maple syrup to add a little sweetness. Talking about 1 1/2 tablespoons of honey.
mix going into baking pan
Spoon into a baking dish ~9×9″
mix in pan
Press the mix firmly and compact the ingredients together.
close up of mix
Looks yum yeah!
close up of mix
YES!
baking pan in fridge
Pop it in the fridge to firm it up a little before cutting and packing.
Baking pan with mixture
Cut into approx 2.5″ x 3″ size or there about. It’s not critical. Nutritional info for this size is below.

Wrapping / Packaging

The trick here is good packaging that holds up in a cycling jersey pocket. And is easy to open and clean to eat the food. A solution is a wrapper that is non stick on the inside and foil on the outside for structure.

ScratchLabs make some called Scratch paper here
Reynolds make some called pan liner here :

You can also make your own with two sheets, one parchment , one regular foil. Thats what I do, takes a little more time but a common thing to buy at the supermarket.

bar on wrapper
Place on the centre of a 8″x8″ piece of wrap paper
paper folded around bar
Wrap the sides in and leave a little hem (overlap) for easy opening and also you can write the contents name on there if you wish
paper folded over bar and ends
Press the sides down firmly to make a little gift. Fold the edges in like wrapping a present.
ends of paper tucked in
Firm tuck and fold the flaps under the main body
To keep them, pop in the fridge make sure they are in an airtight container, this stops them from drying out.

Summary

The pro’s: the recipe can be modified easily to your taste, mix up the sweetness or the ingredients. Mine turned out pretty well, I think next time I will go heavier on the figs. You could also do a variant on a sweet bar with something like blueberries and chocolate chips.
The con’s: They last about 6 days in a refrigerator, so if you eat 9 bars in 6 days that is cool, otherwise. You might want to experiment with freezing


Costs

Calrose Rice : $1.18 ( $3.49 a bag but only needed 1/3 of it)
Pecans : $4.86
Dried Fig :$2.87
Honey : ? Guessing about $0.50

My pan made 9 bars so $1.05 per bar.

Nutritional Info

268 Calories
10g Fat
20mg Sodium
41g Carbs
3g Fiber
6g Protein

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