Strawberry Plum Oatmeal Flax Bars #recipe

While prepping for back to school, and trying to get a handle on what my 4 year old will eat for his lunches and snacks, I wanted to make sure to bake up as many muffins, bars, cookies and snacks as possible in advance to make my life a little easier in the first few weeks.

All of the things I have been baking have either fruit+veggie puree, whole grains, or secret proteins in them to make sure that he is getting a balanced diet at school.

These snack bars are full of whole grains and reduced sugar jam, and get an added nutritional punch from ground flaxseed!

What you'll need:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oats
5 tbsp ground flaxseed
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/4 cup butter

Preheat your oven to 350F and grease a 9x11 baking dish.

In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, oats, baking soda, brown sugar and flax. You can opt to add already ground flax or you can grind flaxseeds with a spice or coffee grinder, and add that (which is what I chose to do.)

Next, using your hands, mix in the coconut oil and butter until your mixture is crumbly.

Take half of your dry mixture and press it into the bottom of your pan. Next, add your filling! Your filling can be anything from reduced sugar jam or homemade fruit or veggie puree. I used a reduced sugar, twice the fruit Strawberry Plum Raspberry jam.

Now, add the rest of your dry mixture and press firmly.

Bake for 35-40 minutes (I baked ours for 37 minutes) then allow to cool completely in the pan. Slice into bars, and store a few in an airtight container. I put the majority of our oatmeal flax bars in a freezer bag, and popped them into the freezer. Then, when I'm packing his lunch, I can just pull one out and put in into one of his snack containers!