Why Alton Brown rocks my world

Years ago during a conversation with someone who commented that she would never hang laundry on a clothesline ("that's why God invented clothes dryers," she said), I came to the realization that there are two kinds of people in the world.

Pirates and Ninjas? No. You fall into one of two categories: either lazy or cheap. I am most definitely cheap. Or frugal, thrifty, what have you. Back when I was finishing my masters degree while also working nights part time and taking care of a 5 year old and a less-than-one year old, I used to grab an occasional power bar in lieu of a meal, just because I had to eat, and they were all I had time for. But it always burned me that this little 2 by 4 inch glorified candy bar with a multivitamin cost like two bucks. I figured there had to be a way to make something similar, but I never found a recipe that looked right. Granola bars are easy enough to do at home, but they're nothing but carbs and fat -- they're a little off on the protein scale.

So a week or two ago, I came home from work and tuned in Good Eats, and caught the "power trip" episode, where Alton makes granola bars, rice crispy bars (from puffed brown rice), and protein bars! I grabbed a pen and scrap paper and frantically tried to copy the recipes down, before I came to my senses and found them on the web. So this past Wednesday, when we got three inches of rain, and I didn't feel like walking the trail at black creek in hip waders, I made a trip to the grocery store and stocked up on dried fruit, soy protein powder, flax seed oil, and other (expensive) goodies. When they tallied up the bill, J said "wouldn't it just be cheaper to buy the power bars?" Well, you know I sat down with a calculator and the store receipt to figure it out.

One of the things that always bugged me about Good Eats recipes is Alton's habit of measuring ingredients by weight rather than just giving us the measurements in cups and tablespoons. Like I'm really going to go out and buy a decent scale and weigh flour rather than just scooping it up out of the canister. But having the weight equivalents of all the ingredients sure made it easy to figure the cost of the recipe. Per serving the protein bars worked out to be fifty-seven cents. And I know I can find dried fruit for less if I shop around.

So now I have a basic power bar recipe that I can play around with and tweak to my liking. I can run the recipe through DietPower to get the nutritional breakdown per serving with whatever variation I do. And I know to the penny how much I save per bar. This makes me happy. What can I say? I'll take happiness wherever I find it.