Guilt-Free Friday - Pumpkin Bars

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I love this holiday – for my side of the family it’s never really been a big deal, never went anywhere or did anything, and for Justin’s side of the family, which is small anyway, we only had one place to go.  It’s so laid back, just make a dish, go to his step-grandparents’ house, eat, visit, go home and sleep it off.  Soooo nice especially when you have a little one that you don’t want to have to drag all over God’s creation (like at Christmas…).  There’s no stress of getting gifts for everyone, and what’s better than having a day for everyone to really focus on the good in life and what we’re thankful for?  I know I don’t focus on my blessings nearly as much as I should, so having a day dedicated to that is pretty nice.

I have a lot to be thankful for, that’s for sure.  I’m thankful for my husband, our little man, my job and business, all the people in my life especially all the new friends I’ve made in the past few years and the people I’ve gotten closer to in recent months, all the fun experiences I’ve had in life, and even all the difficult ones, because I’m a better and stronger person now because of them.

I’m also thankful for my health, and all the new things I’m learning about that (and getting to share it with all of you!).  I’m thankful that eating healthy is becoming increasingly easy, too… Yesterday was a nice reminder why I’ve switched over to a cleaner way of eating.  Of course I didn’t behave – I loaded up on stuffing, my sister-in-law’s yummy corn casserole, apple pie… *groan*.  I think the only thing that was “diet”-friendly was the turkey, and I guess the green beans in the green bean casserole (although technically beans aren’t considered paleo… that’s on my list of things to look into because I happen to like green beans and don’t understand what can be wrong with them!  I’ll share when I figure it out!).  I felt pretty heavy and sluggish and foggy and disgusting after all that, but it all tasted soooooo goooood….

At least my dessert was “diet”-friendly, being gluten-free and sugar-free.  Honestly, I couldn’t tell it was any different than any other dessert.  This thing was GOOD.  And I’m actually not a big pumpkin fan – Justin eagerly awaits Dairy Queen’s pumpkin pie blizzard every year; I, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about that.  I’ll have one bite and say “meh, I’ll stick with cookie dough”.  Not sure why I decided to give this dessert a whirl, but I’m glad I did… holy cow, I was licking the spoon clean and feeling bummed when it was all gone!!

Yeah I'm taking my pictures with my iPhone.  All the other food blogs out there have really gorgeous pictures that show off not only their culinary talent but their photography skill as well.  Not me, no, I snap with my phone, plug it into the computer while I'm blogging, copy the picture, done.

Still looks pretty yummy though, doesn't it?  Oh it is.  I know sugar-free stuff usually tastes a little different, but I'm serious, this really does taste like it's bad for you... it's SOOOO GOOOD.  I don't care if it's not Thanksgiving anymore and you don't necessarily have a reason to make a pumpkin dessert - you need to make this.  It's amazing.  And now I'm thinking about taking some of the filling and mixing it with ice cream (yeah I gotta ruin a good thing...)... and a splash of homemade kahlua... (I repeat........).  Haha anyway, seriously, this is really yummy.

I stole this recipe from a blog I’ve been enjoying called PaleOMG!.  It’s been pretty helpful as I’ve been converting, and her writing style is a lot of fun to read!

These are her Pumpkin Pie Bars – I’ll post the recipe as she wrote it and tell you what I did differently.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

For the crust

• 6 dates, pits removed (I used dried apricots because for some reason I had those on hand and not dates… not sure why but it worked!)
• 1 cup almond butter (or a cup or so of dry roasted almonds turned into butter, which I’ll explain)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of salt

For the filling

• 1 (14oz) can pumpkin puree
• ½ cup canned coconut milk (but I used almond milk)
• ¼ cup Coconut Cream Concentrate or homemade coconut butter, melted to be just a bit soft (I found cream of coconut at Schnuck’s)
• 3 tablespoons Coconut Oil, melted
• 3 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ⅛ teaspoon allspice
• ⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/16 teaspoon ground cloves (don’t measure, just splash)
• (side note – I just used two tsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of all the above listed spices)
• pinch of salt

For the toppings

• ½ cup pecans, roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons Coconut Oil
• 2 tablespoon maple syrup (in this case I ran out and used honey)
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. First we will make the crust.  Technically you’re supposed to add the dates and almond butter to a food processor, but I don’t have one of those (it’s on my Christmas list!) so I just stuck my apricots and almonds into my blender, along with… 
3. Add your 2 eggs, honey, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and salt and puree until smooth.  This actually worked well in my regular old run-of-the-mill blender, and the almonds pureed into butter quite nicely with the help of the other ingredients!
4. Grease an 8×8 glass baking dish with some coconut oil and pour in your crush. Use a spoon to smooth off the surface and level out all over.
5. Place in oven to bake for 12-15 minutes or until crust is firm and cooked through when you poke it with a toothpick. Then let cool.
6. While your crust is baking, make your filling ingredients.
7. Add your pumpkin puree along with all other ingredients and puree until completely smooth. Coconut cream concentrate should be incorporated in, not chunky.
8. When your crust is cool, top it off with your pumpkin puree filling and smooth evenly through.
9. Last but not least, make your topping.
10. Add 2 tablespoons of coconut oil to a small skillet to heat under medium heat. Then add your chopped pecans.
11. These will burn easily so be careful.
12. While constantly mixing the pecans, add your maple syrup (or honey in my case), cinnamon, and a bit of salt and continue to stir until pecans have roasted a bit. About 3-4 minutes.
13. Pour pecans on top of pumpkin puree filling.
14. Set in freezer to cool for 20+ minutes.
15. Cut and serve. Keep in fridge or freezer to keep intact and from melting.

 Enjoy!  I promise you will :).


Oh, and UPS just showed up with my Amazon shipment of "healthy" Christmas cookie ingredients!  Whoop whoop!  Yep, that's the extent of my Black Friday shopping.  Have stuff shipped to my door.  Planned that out well!  Stay tuned, I've got a LOT of good Guilt-Free Friday posts coming up!