My grandma has been having diabetes since early ’90. I remember our meals have always been adapted for that reason and I’ve been used to eat dietary food since my childhood. You see, she used to cook lunch for the whole family -at least during the week- and so the rest of us enjoyed healthier food, too – which was rather a good thing.

In order to know what kind of meals she should be preparing, my grandma had bought a couple of cookbooks dedicated to her illness. She would try a new recipe every now and then, however over time those books ended on a bookshelf, forever forgotten… until couple of months ago, when I was scanning that shelf for some other thing and found one of those cookbooks; after a short browsing through pages, I realized those recipes sounded more than great! So that book went home with me.

I’d like to share with you the recipe for these yummy oat bars, they are full of fiber and vitamins, and they keep well for a week at least. Perfect as a snack or packed in a lunch box – you have to try them!

OAT BARS
(adapted from Louise Tyler: Diabetes Cookbook)

Ingredients:
200g dried apricots
2 apples (granny smith or similar)
200ml apple juice
grated peel of one non-treated orange
1 Tbsp cane sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
juice of 1/2 lemon
250g softened butter
150g whole wheat flour
75g cane sugar
1 tsp baking powder
200g rolled oats
70g coarsely chopped nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios…)
butter for the pan

1. Chop the apricots, peel, core and cube the apples and place them in a skillet. Add apple juice, grated orange peel, cinnamon, 1 Tbsp sugar and lemon juice and bring to boil. Let simmer for about 10 minutes, remove and let cool. Afterwards, blend all together in a food processor. Set aside.
2. Stir the soft butter together with the sugar, add flour (previously mixed with the baking powder), rolled oats and chopped nuts.
3. Spoon a half of this mix into a buttered baking dish (mine was of the size 34x20cm), spread the fruit mix over it, then crumble the rest of oat mix on top, pressing down the “crumbs” a little. Transfer the baking dish into the preheated oven (180 C) and bake until golden, it will take about 30′. (I had to cover the dish with aluminum foil after 15′ of baking.)
4. Once baked, cut the oat slice into (rectangular) bars (I got 10) and let cool completely before taking them out of the dish. Store them in an air-tight container (I kept them in the fridge).