Coconut Lemon Breakfast Bars - Recipe

Hi everyone!  It's time for another smart and healthy recipe.  First I want to share some happy stuff.  I am down from 150 to 146 lbs.  Hopefully it will keep dropping.  I can't wait until school is out so I can spend more days in the gym.  This summer I will be working much harder to shed all of this weight I put on from having babies.  Just to put it out there, my goal loss by the year 2014 is 30 lbs.  I can do it.

One last bit of great news, I have been struggling this semester.  Human Physiology has been my toughest science course yet.  I started out with a professor who was fresh out of grad school and had never taught before.  She lectured everything individually and didn't tie it altogether to make it applicable.  She left mid term, and while it was pretty stressful, I was completely relieved.  The professor who took her place is brilliant at making the curriculum stick and make sense.  We recently had our Unit 3 exam and out of his 4 classes three people made the highest score of 94%.  I was one of those three, so YAY!  I feel smart again. Ha.

Now.  About this recipe.  This recipe comes out of a cookbook I got recently to help get more "superfoods" in my diet.  The book is called "Superfood Kitchen" and it is authored by Julie Morris.  I can't vouch for all of the recipes, but it is full of awesome information about all the superfoods.

One of the most difficult things about eating healthy is cutting down the refined sugar intake and finding healthy things to satisfy the sweet tooth.  This recipe does that.  Baking these refreshing, filling, sweet-tooth satisfying treats up is not as simple as whipping up a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  Zesting a whole lemon peel and chopping up dates is time consuming and exasperating, but I am always happy I took the time to do it.  The kids love them too.

Coconut Lemon Breakfast Bars

WHAT YOU NEED:
1 1/2 Tbsp Chia Seeds
3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 C oat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of sea salt
3/4 C + 2 Tbsp shredded dried coconut, divided.
2 Tbsp fresh lemon zest
2 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
2 Tbsp applesauce
1/4 C maple syrup or agave nectar
1/2 C soft Medjool dates (about 5 or 6) pits removed.

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.  Lightly grease an 8x8 inch baking pan.

Zest the lemon to get 2 Tbsp worth.  Set aside.

In a small bowl, mix the chia seeds and lemon juice together.  Put this aside so that the chia seeds will soak up the lemon juice and plump up.  Stir once at 10 minutes.

While the seeds are soaking, get a medium mixing bowl, mix together the oat flour, baking powder, salt, and 3/4 C of coconut flakes.  Sprinkle in the the lemon zest and mix well.

In another mixing bowl mix together the coconut oil, apple sauce, and maple syrup or agave nectar (I use agave nectar). Add in the chia seed/lemon juice mixture and the chopped dates.

Pour the wet ingredients in with the dry and mix well with a spatula or spoon.

Spread the mixture into the baking pan using the spatula to flatten the surface.  Sprinkle the top with the last bit of coconut flakes.  Press lightly into the mixture.

Bake for 25-28 minutes.  While it is still warm cut into bars or squares.  What size you make them is up to you.  The book says to cut them into 12 - 16 squares.  HA!  I didn't get that many out of it ha.