Pumpkin Hoarder

As I type this, my arms are shaking.  Sully has been in quite the mood today.  You know the mood where if your mother sets you down, you think the world might end?  Yeah, that one.  So I have been holding him all.day.long.  It is moods like this that I did not anticipate before I became a parent.  I so foolishly convinced myself I would be a master at the art of distraction and I would be able to get everything done that I want to do while my child plays quietly by himself.  Completely delusional.  Finally, I gave up and we are on the couch watching a Spongebob marathon.

But not before I managed to whip up some homemade granola bars (hence the shaking arms)!

I have been wanting to make some homemade granola for some time now.  So I searched Pinterest and Google and decided on this recipe which I found here.

This is what the recipe called for:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup raisins (optional)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

When I was raiding my pantry for ingredients, I found these:

Apparently, I have been hoarding canned pumpkin.  No, none of them are expired.  So I was determined to use some in the granola bars, to make them extra fall-y.  I like to read the comments after recipes as they always have great ideas and one of the comments mentioned using canned pumpkin so I knew I could do it!

Here are the ingredients I did use:

• 1 cup each of Old fashioned oats and instant oats
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup raisins (optional)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup canned pumpkin

Have you ever tried to get all the hard lumps out of your brown sugar then mix dry and wet ingredients with a toddler on your hip?  It's hard!  So I had to intermittently put him down which immediately resulted in this:

Somehow I was able to get to this point and threw it in the oven for 20-25 minutes (I thought the 30-35 minutes that they suggested would result in granola that was too hard).

Once they finish cooling, I will throw them in a big ziploc bag and we will have a delicious breakfast this week.  They are nice and soft, yummy and fall-y.

I also want to try this Pumpkin Frappe recipe and this Pumpkin muffin recipe from Pinterest.  That should use up all this canned pumpkin....then I can go buy more.