Libby's Adventure Snack: Vegetarian Pemmican
In the Libby & Dish story “Adventure Checklist,” Libby and Dish prepare for Libby’s outing to the city with their Adventure Checklist. All four items — including a Mask of On-and-Off Invisibility and a Shelter Cloak of Safekeeping — serve to provide Libby with everything she needs for the trip. Ready for a little detective work, she ventures out and finds the first clue to answering an important question, thanks to Mr. Bhachu, her grumpy neighbor.
Pemmican is a food that was first created up by Native Americans. Traditionally, pemmican was made by mixing dried, pulverized meat with animal fat and dried fruit. This made a portable, nutrient-dense food that would keep for years without spoilage. As Dish says, it's a “super human food” and it is, in fact, enjoyed by South Pole explorers. If you have a good snack in your bag, you can go anywhere!
Vegetarian Pemmican Bars
(makes 8 large bars or 16 smaller “bites”)
Ingredients
2 cups mixed, raw nuts and seeds (I used pecans, almonds, and pumpkin seeds)
½ tablespoon coconut oil
1 ½ cups dried fruit (I used cherries and apricots)
1 tablespoon flax seeds
pinch salt
½ cup honey
¼ cup water
Directions
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a large skillet, lightly toast the nuts and seeds. When the nuts smell warm, turn off the heat and stir in the coconut oil to coat the nuts.
Transfer the nut mixture to the bowl of a food processor and pulse several times to coarsely chop. Add the dried fruit, flax seed, and a pinch of salt, then pulse a few more times to chop and combine them. With the food processor running on low, drizzle in the honey and water.
Butter or spray a piece of parchment paper and press it into a small baking dish. (The one I used was roughly 9 x 7 inches.) Scrape the mixture out of the food processor and into the dish, using clean hands to press it down into the corners.
Bake the pemmican for 25-30 minutes, or until the edges start to turn deep brown. Allow it to cool completely in the pan, then use the parchment paper to remove it and cut it into bars.
Store your pemmican bars in the fridge — with parchment paper layered between them — for up to two months, or keep them in the freezer almost indefinitely.
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About the Author
Meryl Carver-Allmond
The Sparkle Kitchen Series is created by Meryl Carver-Allmond.
Meryl lives in a hundred-year-old house near the prairie with her sweet husband, two preschoolers, one puppy, one gecko, and about ten chickens. While she's been writing since she could pick up a pen, in recent years she's discovered the joy of photography, too. She feels lucky to be able to combine those skills, along with a third passion — showing people that cooking for themselves can be healthy and fun — in her Sparkle Kitchen posts.
