Gluten-free granola bars recipe

For months, I had a stash of some sort of protein or granola bars in my freezer, but after discovering my gluten intolerance, it took me a while to make ones that I can eat.  It's definitely not hard to adapt granola bar recipes to avoid gluten because they usually don't involve much flour, so substitutions don't have a drastic effect on the results.  I don't know what took me so long to make these, but I'm glad that I have now replenished my stock.  This time I decided to give Ellie Krieger's recipe another shot.  To be honest, I didn't want to make my standby recipe because it would involve opening a new jar of peanut butter.  There's an unopened jar waiting in my pantry, but I don't trust myself right now.  Lately I've had an extreme weakness for all things nut-related (I blame it all on running, and I hope it will go away after my race at the end of the month).  So in an effort to avoid eating half of the jar in one sitting (and making myself extremely sick), I decided to go for my second favorite recipe.

I really like these and they're extremely filling, especially with the protein powder.  My bars look somewhat small, but that's all I need to keep me going.  In my opinion, they have the perfect amount of sweetness - they're sweet, but not overly so.  These also have a perfect granola bar consistency, and I think I'm enjoying these even more than I did last time, but that might be because I haven't had a granola bar in several months.  I especially appreciate that this recipe is so simple, although I'm somewhat shocked that the dates and apricots haven't ruined my cheap food processor blade yet.  Granola bars are one of my favorite mid-morning or post-workout snacks, and I'm not sure how I lived for several months without them.

Gluten-free granola bars (adapted from Ellie Krieger)
(Printable version)

1 cup gluten-free rolled oats
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup gluten-free baking mix (or your favorite baking mix or gluten-free flour)
1/4 cup flax meal
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried dates
1/2 cup whey protein powder (or powdered milk)
1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs

Put all ingredients except for the honey and eggs in food processor and pulse until well blended and finely chopped. Add honey and eggs and pulse until well mixed. Pour into an 11x7" pan that's been lined with lightly-oiled wax paper. Bake at 350 for about 20 min, until browned. Let cool and cut into bars.  Makes 20 small bars.

I package mine individually and then freeze them.  If I want to take one with me somewhere, I'll pull it out of the freezer in the morning and it's thawed in a couple of hours.  If I want one immediately, I throw it in the microwave for about 15 seconds.  Somehow they stay extremely fresh!