Cooking: Pumpkin Granola Bars

I love homemade granola bars! They're cheaper than store bought ones plus you can control what you put in them. This morning, I took elements of my favorite granola bar recipes and mixed them together. Viola...pumpking granola bars! The ingredient list is fairly long (usually scares me away from making stuff when it has tons of ingredients) but they're well worth the time!

Ingredients:
1-15 ounce can pumpkin 
2 eggs
4 Tbsp butter, melted (I used Smart Balance 50/50 Butter Blend)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses (pop it in the microwave for a few seconds to make it pourable if you need to)
1 tsp vanilla


3 cups rolled oats (not the quick cooking oats!)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup ground flax seed
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup unsalted peanuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins
1/2 tsp cinamon
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees before completing the following steps.

I get all of my ingredients out before I begin. It's awful to be in the middle of a recipe and realize you're out of something!

Mix all of the moist ingredients and dry ingredients in separate bowls

Mix the moist ingredients into the dry bowl. I find that a fork works best for this.

Spray a large baking dish with cooking spray

Press mixture into pan with a spatula or you can spray your hands with cooking spray and press it into the pan

I bake everything on the middle rack

350 degrees for 40 minutes

Fresh out of the oven!

Cut them soon after removing from the oven and place on a cooling rack. I don't own a cooling rack so this is a boiler pan turned upside down.

Note that the only sugar ingredients are honey and molasses so they aren't nearly as sweet as store bought granola bars...part of what makes them so good in my opinion! If you prefer yours a little sweeter, you can add 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Enjoy!!