Peanut Butter Oat Bars

I’ve been fiddling with an oat and peanut bar for a while now. I made some at Christmas time with a date and cocoa filling that I loved! I’d kind of forgotten about them until I stumbled across another oat bar recipe in Deceptively Delicious—and that one used a blueberry spinach filling! All of the sudden recipes were colliding in my head and running through the items in my pantry. I remembered having a big bag of figs from Costco and I thought they would work in the same way that the dates did. And they have a strong enough flavor to mask the spinach—another item I had in my fridge that I had to use up! So as soon as David went down for his nap I headed in to the kitchen and came up with these. I’ll provide a few different options for the fillings, as well as sugar free (Stevia) and with sugar. You can mix and match and bake to your hearts’ content. No matter which way you make them, they won’t last long! David was begging for more “cake” and inhaling the bars that I gave him! Impressive since he “hates” figs and had no idea that he was eating spinach either ?

For those of you with nut allergies, you could use sunbutter in this recipe, or even a combination of sunbutter and Earth Balance. I plan to fiddle around with a nut free crust in the future, and if I find something I like I will post that too!

Peanut Butter Oat Bars

Crust
1 1/2 c rolled oats
1/2 c dried coconut (unsweetened)
20 drops stevia —OR— ½ c brown sugar
1/4 t salt
3/4 t baking soda
1 c peanut butter
1 T coconut oil
1 T water

Fig Filling
250g dried figs, top stems snipped off
2 c spinach
1/2 c water
1 t coconut oil, optional

Date Chocolate Filling:
250g dried dates, pits removed
3-4 T cocoa powder
2 c spinach
1/2 c water
1 t coconut oil, optional

Place 1 c of oats into the food processor and run for about 30 seconds to break them up, but don’t grind them all the way to a flour. Add the peanut butter, sweetener, salt, baking soda, coconut oil and water and pulse again until the dough starts to come together. Add the remaining ½ cup of oats and ½ cup of coconut and pulse again just to incorporate. Turn out dough into a separate bowl, scraping as much of the dough out with a spatula as possible. Don’t worry about washing the bowl for the next step though!

Place water, dried fruit (figs or dates), cocoa if using, spinach, water and coconut oil into a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer for 5 minutes to allow spinach to wilt and fruit to soften. Remove from heat and transfer to the food processor bowl. Pulse a few times, turning the mixture into a jam consistency.

Line an 8 inch baking pan with parchment paper in both directions making a cross. Pour 2/3 of the dough mixture into the pan. Press down with your fingers, smooshing it together. Pour fruit filling on top. Sprinkle remaining 1/3 of dough on top (it will not cover completely).

The green color from the spinach bakes away!

Place in oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Carefully pull oven rack out and use the bottom of a metal measuring cup to press the crust onto the filling a little bit more. Bake for 5 more minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Carefully lift from the pan and cut into 16 squares. Impress your friends and have them guess the secret ingredient!

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