Get your kids to ask for veggies with their breakfast! Hahaha! That sounds like false advertisement, doesn’t it? I know I would certainly raise an eyebrow in skepticism if someone told me that their kids had made that request. I’d be like, “Sure, sure…had you had your coffee yet?” But, if you think about it, that is EXACTLY what my kids did this morning when they asked for these Pumpkin Maple Oat Squares.
I realize I’m probably preaching to the choir, but Pumpkin is awesome. It’s a superfood bursting with potassium, vitamin c and antioxidants, particularly beta-carotene. It’s filling and low in calories, but high in nutrition. And, it can replace butter or oil in a lot of recipes. While it is technically a fruit, most people consider it a veggie. I know I do! And it is the perfect way to sneak more veggies into your kids’ diet, particularly this time of year.
Unfortunately, most pumpkin recipes are chock full of refined flours and sugars. The trick was to come up with a recipe that didn’t contain those. So, a couple months ago I started experimenting with my Healthy Banana Oat Squares recipe, replacing the bananas with pumpkin. I had to add some organic coconut sugar (which, if you aren’t familiar with it, tastes a lot like a rich brown sugar) to make up for the fact that pumpkin doesn’t have the natural sweetness of bananas. But, I tried to limit the amount. This is what I came up with:
Pumpkin Maple Oat Squares
Equipment
- food processor
- 9×9 glass baking dish
- Oven
Ingredients
- 1 15-oz can organic pumpkin
- 2½ cups oatmeal
- ¼ cup organic coconut sugar
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup real maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp coconut oil for greasing the baking dish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Grease a baking dish using the ½ tsp coconut oil.
- Pour dry ingredients (oatmeal, coconut sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg) into the food processor and process on low until it resembles course flour. This should take maybe 1-2 minutes, max.
- Add wet ingredients (pumpkin, eggs, vanilla and maple syrup) to the dry ingredients in the food processor. Process on low for another 1-2 minutes until the batter is smooth.
- Pour batter into a low-sided greased baking dish.
- Bake for 35 minutes at 350°F.
- After baking, let cool for a few minutes before cutting and serving.
Notes
These Pumpkin Maple Oat Squares tend to be really fudgey in texture. They aren’t light and fluffy by any means, but they are tasty and filling. My kiddos ate a whole plate full of them yesterday when they got home from school and it helped a lot with the after-school hanger I deal with on a daily basis (particularly from my littlest one). It’s the equivalent of having a bowl full of oatmeal mixed with some pumpkin and a little maple syrup—but much more palatable to a 5 or 10-year-old!
If you want to make these even yummier, make some Coconut Maple Whipped Cream to go with it.
And, once again, I have the same strange caveat with these Pumpkin Maple Oat Squares that I did with the Healthy Banana Oat Squares: If you have cats, they may find these irresistible. I truly don’t know why. If I made these with tuna and catnip, I would understand the unwavering interest, but these are pumpkin. And oatmeal. There is absolutely no catnip in these, (or any other special herbs, for that matter!) so this interest makes very little sense. Nonetheless, just watch out that your cat doesn’t eat these when your back is turned.
