Taking a poll here. Do you eat orange-colored foods? As in pumpkin, winter squash, and sweet potatoes? Okay. Now, are you male or female? I could find no supporting studies to confirm my theory, but I know several men who prefer to never eat orange food at all.

Not. Ever. Again.

Carrots … but only if they’re raw.

Maybe they are afraid of what the fellow in this banner experienced. Alas, poor York, I knew him well.

I joined with the excitement sweeping across the country as temperatures began to drop and Dunkin’ Donuts brought back all things pumpkin.

A pumpkin latte is not a waist-slimming or healthy meal replacement beverage, but there have been two in my life since the start of September. I’m still waiting for that perfect day to eat my ONCE yearly glutenous, pumpkin donut. It will be a fine moment!

I do adore pumpkin treats. Rather than grabbing an expensive gluten-free crust for my pumpkin pie, I will often just omit the crust all together and bake my pumpkin filling in a greased baking dish.

Pumpkin pudding, anyone?

A recipe came to my inbox the other day from the blog paleomg.com for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oat Bars. She apologized for them not being paleo because of the oats, and she – like I have – returned to eating gluten-free oats with no ill effects.

But I just can’t leave a recipe alone. I’m always tweaking ingredients to make recipes more nutritious.

This recipe checks so many brain food boxes: all the benefits of colorful food, dark chocolate, whole grain, Omega3 fatty acids, fiber, more Omega3s, protein, eggs (remember last week’s Adam’s apple?), walnuts (did they pop out of my navel?), more protein – check, check, check.

So, here’s my first dive into pumpkin-inspired recipes, and I’m so pleased with the results. I hope you will try these.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oat Bars 2.0

Ingredients

3/4 cup/175 ml canned pumpkin puree (The original recipe uses ½ cup/125 ml, but I added dry ingredients that would need the added moisture)

1 cup/250 ml runny nut butter (almond or cashew)

Note: I made my own nut butter using a food processor and soaked, unroasted cashews. Make sure you soak the cashews for one hour. The goal is to not have a dry nut butter as the bars will be too dry and crumble. I added some avocado oil and a small spoonful of coconut oil until the consistency was to my liking.

2 extra-large eggs

¼ cup/50 ml maple syrup

¼ cup/50 ml brown sugar – or less

Note: This is me adding sugar to a recipe! I’m usually eliminating it, but when I tested the batter, it was just off, so I added just a small shake of brown sugar from the bag. It wasn’t much, but it did the job. These are not overly sweet tasting at all. As I have mentioned in the past – sugar makes you want more sugar – so I don’t use a lot of the stuff.

1 teaspoon/5 ml vanilla extract

1 ½ cups/375 ml gluten-free old-fashioned oats

2 teaspoons/10 ml pumpkin pie spice

½ teaspoon/2.5 ml baking soda

Pinch of salt – I used a little more because my nut butter lacked salt

½ cup/125 ml mini-dark chocolate chips. The original recipe calls for 1 cup/250 ml of regular-sized chips, but mini-chips seem to go further and I did not want the chocolate to overpower the pumpkin.

My additions that make this good for you:

¼ cup/50 ml collagen hydrolysate

2 tablespoons/ 30 ml of hemp seed hearts

2 tablespoons/30 ml ground flax seeds

¼ cup/60 ml chopped walnuts

You may need a few spoonfuls of coconut flour at the end if the batter seems too wet. Add a bit at a time, stirring well after each addition.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease an 8 x 8-inch baking dish.

In a medium sized bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients.

In a large bowl, whisk/mix the wet ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, incorporating well. If the batter/mix seems too wet, add a bit of coconut flour, a spoonful at a time, stirring well after each addition.

Pour/spoon batter into prepared pan. I sprinkled about 1 tablespoonful of turbinado sugar(*) on top just to dress things up.

Bake 45-50 minutes. Start checking for doneness at 45 minutes – mine was starting to get a little too brown on top but the toothpick test revealed a still wet interior, so I put some foil over the top and continued to bake it until it was obviously done on the inside.

When fully baked, remove from oven to cool. After 5 minutes, slice using a serrated knife. I easily cut mine into sixteen squares. Just enough to go with a cup of coffee for special fall morning breakfast outdoors.

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In health – Deidre

(*) Turbinado Sugar is darker and less fine. It is also known as raw sugar.