Healthy Running Snacks

We load up on oat bran in the morning so we'll live forever.  Then we spend the rest of the day living like there's no tomorrow.  ~Lee Iacocca

Love These!
Silicon Cupcake Molds

Don't you just love this quote?  It's funny, convicting and honest all at the same time!  So true that we often do this every day!  In a few weeks I will be running a 3 day relay race with 11 of the most amazing girls I know!  One of the challenges of the race was what to eat?  You can't really last three days by pulling off the quote above.  We all knew portable nutrition (we will be sleeping in vans the entire time) would be really hard when you take away the fast food.  So a few nights ago I decided to do some searching online and come up with some great recipes I could try out and last night was my experimenting night.  Now just so you know experimenting with different recipes in the kitchen is one of my FAVORITE things to do so I was loving every minute of it.  Some of the recipes ended up being pretty amazing so I decided to share three below.

Cinnamon Almond Raisin Balls
Great on-the-go sweet snack!
Ingredients:
1 cup almonds
1 cup raisins
1 tsp cinnamon

Rinse almonds and raisins (very important as water makes them stick better)
Toss raisins, cinnamon, and almonds in food processor.  Blend until they come together.
Roll into balls and serve!
So easy and yet healthy!  However, the raisin taste is quite strong and I think next time I will use dates as they are not as strong but still sticky enough to work.

Cinnamon, Honey Almond Butter
Amazing on apples, pears, reduced fat nilla wafers, etc...
Ingredients:
1 cup almonds (I used leftovers from the package I bought for the recipe above)
2 tsp honey
1 tsp cinnamon
*few drops of oil (olive, vegetable, etc...)

Place almonds ONLY in food processor and process for 12 minutes until almonds release their oils and form into a peanut-butter like substance. (*if your almonds are dry roasted you may need to add a few drops of oil to help them out)
Remove almond butter from food processor and place into bowl
Stir in 2 tsp honey and 1 tsp of Cinnamon (don't add these while processing or your butter will seize up and not work)
Place in resealable container and store in fridge

Spicy Beef Jerky
*this is Alton Brown's beef jerky recipe found here
Ingredients:
1 1/2 to 2 pounds flank steak
2/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Trim the flank steak of any excess fat, place in a zip-top bag, and place it in the freezer for 1 to 2 hours in order to firm up.
Remove the steak from the freezer and thinly slice the meat with the grain, into long strips.
Place the strips of meat along with all of the remaining ingredients into a large, 1-gallon plastic zip-top bag and move around to evenly distribute all of the ingredients. Place the bag into the refrigerator for 3 to 6 hours.
Remove the meat from the brine and pat dry. Evenly distribute meat onto food dehydrator and cook.
Once dry, store in a cool dry place, in an airtight container for 2 to 3 months.
*please note make sure you know how long your food dehydrator takes I started mine at 7 PM, it wasn't done when I went to sleep at 11:30 so I had to set 2 alarms during the night to get up and check on it :) much like having a small child but could have been prevented by reading the directions.