My Maca Bars

My Maca Bars (version 1.0)

This is my first maca cooking experience, and it's still in the oven, but I needed to try and make something that was at least mildly appealing ... as opposed to the other options of suffer or starve. Keep an eye out as I evolve my recipe, I'll (hopefully) keep track of what I'm doing. (I have "Taste-test Notes" at the bottom of this post)
The original recipe is here, but I had to creatively adjust based on desperation, for starters the original calls for coconut oil, and I avoid coconut products anywhere near my palate, I'm not allergic, I just really dislike ... hate ... coconut. I do however have an egg allergy, so they had to go.

• 1/2 cup organic honey
• squirt of organic (light) agava (optional, I happen to have a super sweet tooth)
• vanilla to taste (I'm a vanilla freak)
• 1/2 - 1 cup organic almond flour
• 1/2 cup organic maca powder
• 2-3 tsps organic chia seed soaked in ~1/4 cup water

Mix it all together and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes in a 8"x8" glass baking dish.

This was my (basic) train of thought when I was tweeking the original recipe. Almond flour, being made from almonds and all, will provide oil, and the water for the chia seed soak will provide the liquid the eggs would have provided. Yep, that was it, my entire train of thought, it was a short train.

...ok, it's out of the oven, but I won't be taste testing until tomorrow, I don't really want an energy boost at (almost) midnight, well I don't want to find out if maca and/or chia seeds will give me an immediate energy boost as I have read about. Basically I'm not looking to see if honey, maca, and chia will keep me up all night.

***TASTE-TEST NOTES***
v 1.0 - I tasted it, and on try #1 it's at the edge of "too sweet" even for me (and that's saying something!)

1st Altered Book

I had been keeping this generic black pleather journal around for quite some time but I always knew it was missing something. That something was apparently me getting the idea to alter it, originally inspired by various "Steampunk" journals I had seen. The most I had ever written in it was my name for "This book belongs to:" and a couple of thoughts on the first two pages. That was it!! Now I am going to make it something more. Over the past year I have taken a major turn toward traditional healing a.k.a. herbal healing. I got tired of seeing "if you or a loved on took this medicine and is now dead or permanently messed up you may be entitled to compensation." Money isn't going to return quality of life. Anyhow, being someone who is required to have some sort of medication on a daily basis I went back to nature, and this is going to be my "recipe" book.

 This is the new front cover. Some fabric flowers that I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink on ... they used to be much brighter colors! A couple of resin black roses, some Tim Holtz gears, a few brads ... Also, I did make that leather Triquetra on my own! I cut the slits on the background leather and wove the other strips of leather through. I am currently adding some silk ribbon embroidery to the cover as well. And yes, I am covering the pleather with leather ... well suede.

 Inside the front cover with my "This book belongs to:" window in the fabric. I had to add this fabric because after all the treatment to the pages and spine I wanted to give a clean finish.

 This is at the very center of the book. Just some rub-ons for the flowers, some self-stick butterfly boarder, and some tissue tape.

 Blank pages. It was a long process of spraying and drying. And to help with the drying and aging I utilized my oven ... and melted the glue in the spine ... but I like it better this way, it's more aged.