Peanut Butter and Veggie Chocolate Dessert Bars

After the long wait for the DVD to come out, we finally get to watch Moana again, and my kids are super excited. My oldest requested to accompany our Moana movie night that I should prepare "popcorn and lots of chocolate" like in the movie theater....hahahaha....

Since we couldn't do a grocery store run to get the chocolate he requested, I decided to make my own Peanut butter chocolate dessert bars with a slight veggie twist to it, that you won't even know is there.

I started by roughly crushing some oat square cereals in my food processor, transferring the crushed cereal into a bowl and mixing it with melted butter, powdered sugar, peanut butter, and some veggie powder. I then transferred the mixture into a parchment lined 9x9 pan.

Next, I melted some chocolate and mixed in some more veggie powder, then poured it on top of the cereal peanut butter layer in the pan. I let the bars cool in the freezer until it was time to serve them up while watching the movie.

This time around I used my homemade pumpkin powder in this recipe, but you could use any powder you have in your pantry. Or if you don't have any homemade veggie powders, you could also use greens powder such as Spirulina powder, etc. Note that different veggie powders have different intensities of flavor and smell, so if you were to use spirulina powder, you may want to reduce the amount you put in, if your family isn't familiar with the flavor yet. I personally have used spirulina powder in many of my recipes and my kids seemed to be fine with the flavor so far.

Also, in retrospect, since we were watching Moana, perhaps I should have used some coconut oil in place of the butter, to give it a little bit of an island taste. Perhaps I will give that a try in the future to see how if would turn out :)

Peanut Butter and Veggie Chocolate Dessert Bars

2 c oat squares (roughly crushed in a food processor)

1 stick of butter (melted)

3/4c powdered sugar

3/4 c peanut butter (or other nut butter)

1/2 tsp pumpkin powder (for peanut butter mixture)

1 c melting chocolate

1/4 tsp pumpkin powder (for the chocolate mixture)

Mix the crushed oat squares, melted butter, powdered sugar, peanut butter, and pumpkin powder in a bowl until well combined. Transfer to a parchment lined 9x9 pan and set aside.

Melt the chocolate and stir in the pumpkin powder, then pour on top of the peanut butter mixture.

Let set in the freezer. Serve.

Here is a printable version of the recipe.