Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal Bites
Hey guys! It’s been forever since I’ve posted a recipe. For the last few months, I’ve been in a bit of a cooking rut. I moved, and while I was still settling into the new kitchen, I fell into a lazy pattern of just walking to Whole Foods to make a salad for dinner or tossing together some quinoa, roasting some veggies, topping with an egg and calling it a day (my go-to easy dinner meal). I missed having yummy snacks and leftovers around the house though, so I’m back at it. Let’s blame the hiatus for the overwhelming number of pictures I included in this post…
I was excited to work with FitFluential on developing a recipe using Canadian maple syrup because it’s my favorite way to add sweetness to a recipe without using sugar. 100% pure maple syrup is natural and unprocessed, meaning it has the health benefits of vitamin and mineral content in addition to its amazingly sweet taste. In particular, it’s a great source of manganese and zinc (these minerals aid in muscle recovery—hello, post-workout snack!) and contains 54 different antioxidant compounds. A little fun fact I learned in this project with Pure Canada Maple (Canada produces 80% of the world’s maple syrup) is that the darker the grade of syrup, the higher the antioxidant activity is.
Yield: 18-25 bites (depending on how big you roll the balls)
Ingredients
- 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats (I used gluten-free)
- 3 tbsp Canadian maple syrup
- 2 tbsp almond butter
- 1 small banana, mashed (about ¼ cup)
- ¼ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ c raisins
- 1/8 – ¼ cup shredded almonds, depending on how crunchy you want your bites (if you only have whole almond, just crush them up before mixing in)
Instructions
- Put the Canadian maple syrup and almond butter in a small pan and heat over low heat, mixing until warm and fully combined.
- Pour over the oats and cinnamon in a big bowl and mix thoroughly. Add in the mashed banana and continue to mix.
- Stir in the raisins and almond bits.
- Cover and place in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. Cooling the mixture will make it easier to form into balls (they’re supposed to be a little sticky).
- Use a small spoon (I used a teaspoon) to scoop the mixture and roll into small bite-sized balls.
Notes
Store covered in the refrigerator. I divided my batch up into small Ziploc bags before storing the fridge so that I could easily grab them as an on-the-go snack.
2.6 http://pumpsandiron.com/2014/10/28/cinnamon-raisin-oatmeal-bites/
For this project, I was also sent a sample of maple water, which I was really excited to try as I’ve seen it popping up in grocery stores lately. It’s the clear water that flows through sugar maple trees, and not at all thick or overwhelmingly sweet like syrup is. It’s actually really refreshing! I’ve been loving using it in smoothies (you can even pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it before tossing into your blender if you want to add some texture to a smoothie). It has half the calories of coconut water and tastes a trillion times better, but I ABHORE coconut water (it tastes like throw-up, you can’t tell me otherwise), so I guess I miiiight be a little biased.
