Not working on Sundays has a lot of ancillary benefits.

Sleeping late is the easy one. Not DVR’ing football games is another one- although kids’ sports schedules usually makes that a moot point. But maybe the tastiest benefit is that I have time to do some cooking.

With yesterday being Hoshana Rabah, there was no work for me, and fall was in full effect, replete with a gusty wind, running with long sleeves, and a bye week for the Patriots.

Even though I had made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast on Saturday and pumpkin bread for Saturday dinner to pair with butternut squash soup, I still had a pumpkiny itch that needed scratching. With the hopes of carving out some new culinary territory, I opened another can of pumpkin, added some easy ingredients, and voila, butter-less and chocolate-less pumpkin brownies bars? treats emerged.

Prep time is five minutes MAYBE. No excuses. Enjoy.Traditional Hoshanah Rabah Cuisine: Pumpkin Bars

Ingredients

1 can pumpkin

½ cup brown sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp nutmeg

2 tsp vanilla

3 ½ cups flour

2 cups applesauce

1 egg

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Add dry ingredients and mix well
  3. In a separate bowl, mix wet ingredients and pumpkin
  4. Combine bowls and stir vigorously
  5. Pour into 8×8 lightly greased pan and smooth the surface
  6. Bake for 35-40 minutes

The insides will stay moist, but you don’t want them sticky, so keep checking them after a half hour to make sure you don’t under- or overdo it.

If you do it right, they’re going to have a nice, chewy consistency with a delicious autumnal taste. You can certainly add (or subtract) sugar to adjust the taste to your liking, or add ¼ cup of oatmeal to give them some extra texture.

This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author, and JewishBoston assumes no responsibility for them. Want to add your voice to the conversation? Publish your own post here. MORE