Fruit & Whole Grain Bar Recipe

I should probably rename my blog to How to Feed Squishy. Lately all of my posts seem to be new recipes, but when you have a toddler who is into food, well… So, anyways. We had some of those store bought Nutrigrain bars that someone brought us. I was grabbing one for myself to snarf first thing in the morning because when I wake up I’m starving!
Advantage of breastfeeding? I can eat like a teenage boy and not worry about my weight. Disadvantage of breastfeeding? I want to constantly eat like a teenage boy.
So, back to the bars. Just recently Squishy has decided that he should get to eat my bar with me when we get up in the morning. I had never thought too much about what was in them until he wanted a bite.
High fructose corn syrup? Mono-what? Poly saturated-huh? Somethingluten-whatta? No, not ok.
So the other day during nap time I went into the kitchen to figure something out that he would like & I would not wince if he ate it. I used a can of Oregon blueberries for the fruit because 1. I had them on hand and 2. The ingredients in them are blueberries, sugar and water. That’s it! You can use any fruit flavor you like or even preserves of your choice. You just won’t have to reduce your preserves to thicken them. If you have fresh fruit you could cook them with a little sugar and water and follow my canned directions.

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Fruit & Whole Grain Bars

1 can Oregon blueberries
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup oats
1/2 cup wheat flour
2 tbs flax meal
6 tbs wheat germ
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 and grease an 8x8x2 inch pan with no stick spray.
Pour can of blueberries into a medium sauce pan and simmer, stirring every couple minutes, for about 10 minutes or reduced by half. Set aside to cool. The syrup will be thicker once cooled.
Meanwhile mix the softened butter, sugar, vanilla, egg and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl until soft and creamy consistency. Add in remaining dry ingredients and stir. Once combined your mixture with resemble a cookie batter.

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Press half of the batter into the bottom of your 8×8 pan. Pour the cooled blueberries over and spread evenly with a spatula. Next take the remaining batter and flatten small amounts with your hands and place on top until it is covered. This won’t look pretty and may even look like a mistake, but it works. šŸ˜‰
Place dish in the center of your oven and bake 20-25 minutes until the berries are bubbly at the edges and the topping is golden brown around the edges too.

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Allow to cool completely and cut into bars. I cut ours into about 1.5×4 inch bars. I wrapped 6 of them individually to freeze. Four of the bars were stored in an airtight container. Two bars were eaten as soon as they were cool enough to taste.
These passed the Squishy test right away! I should have waited until he was finished with lunch before letting him try a nibble. Oh well, at least I know exactly what is in them. No words we can’t pronounce and no high fructose corn syrup!

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2 Responses so far »

  1. 1

    kellycable said,

    These look amazing!!


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