My Darling Daughter has been scouring the BTD and GTD websites for recipes. She does a lot of her searching after she finishes her schoolwork in computer lab. "Look Mom," she said excitedly one afternoon, "we can make our own snack bars."

I'll admit, at first I didn't share her excitement. There are a lot of really healthy snack bars and power bars on the market for a reasonable price. They're easy to keep in the pantry, ready to stick in a backpack at a moment's notice.

The recipe she brought was from the BTD Recipe Database. It is two similar recipes posted together. The names are Prune Nut Snack Bar and Date Nut Snack Bar. We decided to try them. Prunes and raisins aren't as beneficial for Teachers as other dried fruit, so we made some substitutions.

Basically both recipes call for 2 cups of chopped nuts and 2 ½ cups of dried fruit, plus 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

We used 1 cup of almonds and 1 cup of mixed walnuts and pecans. We used 1½ cups of dates and 1 cup of mixed dried cherries and cranberries. Put them in the food processor and let it run on full speed until the mixture starts to get sticky. Spray a 9x9 pan with cooking spray and press the fruit/nut mixture into the pan. Cover and refrigerate. Cut into squares.

We ate them as a snack yesterday afternoon. They are heavenly! The cinnamon and dried fruit is a wonderful combination. Be forewarned. They do not hold together as well as store bought snack bars. We each had a bar in a Tupperware box. Rather than hold the whole bar in our hands like a cookie, we pinched off bites.

I started thinking about adding some neutral flour or an egg to make them hold together better. DD thinks the inconvenience of not being able to hold the bar is more than made up for by the fact that they are much lower sodium, and there are no fillers or binders at all. I've decided that she's probably right.