Chocolate Coconut Oat Bars

Hope everyone had a good Food Allergy Awareness Week last week. There was definitely some great information floating around...and great allergy-friendly recipes!

Since it was a bit warmer this weekend I decided to try a new "no bake" recipe so I didn't have to turn on my oven.  Even though this recipe IS no bake, I don't want to officially name it no bake since you have to warm some of the ingredients in a pot for a few minutes. However, I still didn't have to turn on my oven!  

This decadent recipe for Chocolate Coconut Oat Bars was inspired by this recipe, which I doubled. The bars I made are sweet, chewy and a little crunchy. They're definitely more of a dessert than a granola bar, but either way, they sure do make my mouth happy :)

Chocolate Coconut Oat Bars: Sweet, chewy and a little crunchy

Ingredients:

• 2 cups oats 
• 1 cup coconut flakes
• 2/3 cup cereal (I used Uncle Sam's wheat flakes which are not gluten-free, but you can use any gluten free cereal option - Rice Krispies, Cornflakes, Corn or Rice Chex, etc.)
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life brand)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil (I used Trader's Joe's) or another oil like organic canola oil
• 1 cup Sunbutter (or any nut butter that's safe for you)
• 2/3 cup honey

Chocolate Coconut Oat Bar Ingredients

Directions:

• Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl
• Melt the coconut oil, Sunbutter and honey in a saucepan on the stove for a few minutes
• Add melted mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well
• Pour everything into an 8 x 8 pan lined with wax paper (for easier cutting and clean-up)
• Refrigerate for a few hours, cut and enjoy!

Here are the bars after they had been in the refrigerator for 3 hours. So easy to let them "cook" in the fridge!

The bars also cut so nicely with a big kitchen knife. I just lifted the wax paper out of the pan and cut the bars into squares.

YUM.

I wrapped the remaining bars (and there aren't many!) in wax paper and I'm storing them in the fridge. They'd probably hold up nicely in the freezer which I may try next time.

So, my weekend was filled with food (yummy chocolate coconut oat bars included), family and fun!  We all enjoyed the rides and sights at a local festival.  See goofy pictures below :)

What kind of fun did you have this weekend?  Any yummy creations or good eating in general?

My Top 5 Picks from Food Allergy Awareness Week

I usually only post once a week on Mondays (it's all I can handle right now!), but I wanted to write an extra post to highlight a few great food allergy articles and resources I saw this week since it's Food Allergy Awareness Week (May 12 - 18). 

Hopefully these will be helpful to you or your family and friends if you haven't seen them yet.  Here are my Top 5 Food Allergy Resources from this past week!

1. Here's an article from Allergic Living with some great reminders. As the articles says, "If there’s one thing we can all strive to do this Awareness Week, it’s to get the message out that: in anaphylaxis, seconds count and epinephrine – not antihistamines, not an asthma puffer – is the first-line medication and the allergic person’s lifesaver. Use it."

2. This poster from Allergic Living includes great reminders about anaphylaxis.

3. Kids with Food Allergies Foundation created this list of 15 Ways to Get Involved for Food Allergy Awareness Week. This list should be used throughout the whole year!  Lots of great ideas here.

4. I completely related to these two posts from another blogger and parent of a child with food allergies: Rants of a Food Allergy Mom and (Positive) Ramblings of a Food Allergy Mom.  Well said.

5. Here's a short video from FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) about food allergy bullying. I hope we never have to deal with this, but it's a good reminder to watch out for it and talk with your children about it.

A number of these items came from my local food allergy parent support group. We have a Facebook group that I find SO helpful for tons of general and hyper-local information. If you're a parent of a child with food allergies and not already part of a local parents' group, then I highly recommend finding one (or starting your own!). 

Our support group is not the "sit in a circle crying" sort of image that pops in your head when you think of a support group.  We usually have educational in-person meetings with speakers once every few months, and use Facebook daily to share information. I've found our support group to be a great source of education and awareness- and we've even made new friends in the process!  Kids with Food Allergies Foundation is a great place to start the search for a support group near you.

For those who deal with food allergies...have you read or watched anything especially helpful during Food Allergy Awareness Week?

Veggie Pizza: Gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free

Pizza is definitely one of my favorite foods.  Although I do wish we could order pizza every now and then as an easy dinner, it's not possible with Little Guy's food allergies.

So what do you do when you can't order pizza?  Make it yourself!

After trying a few different off-the-shelf gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free pizza mixes, my favorite by far is Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Mix.  Even though the directions include eggs, they also offer egg-free directions using flax-seed meal.

Pizza is such a great meal option because you can customize it for your family's taste buds   Our favorite basic pizza includes:

• Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Mix
• Jar of tomato sauce (I like Wegman's Tomato Basil sauce for $1)
• Daiya Mozzarella cheese
• Veggies: Cherry tomatoes, spinach and mushrooms
• Seasonings: Basil and oregano (dried red pepper for me on my slices!)

I just follow the directions on the Bob's Red Mill package, top the pizza with about 1/4 of the jar of tomato sauce, sprinkle on Daiya Mozzarella cheese, add fresh veggies like spinach, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms, and then sprinkle with basil and oregano.

You could almost call this a garden salad pizza.

Here's a bird's eye view before I pop the final product in the oven. Looks veggie-licious!

Here's the finished pizza. I'm always amazed by how much the veggies shrink!

Mmmm-good.

Little Guy has had toddler-moments when he won't eat the veggie packed pizza. So, I've made pizzas that:

1. Include less veggies on top
2. Include veggies that are "hiding" underneath the cheese. He doesn't seem to mind them if he can see more cheese on top than veggies.  

Here's one pizza where I used less spinach.

I also added pepperoni to this one for my Hubby.

Want a slice?

Here are my favorite pizza-making products!

What's your favorite homemade pizza?