I absolutely love the almond flavor combined with the strawberry flavor.  When I have cold cereal for breakfast, it’s usually Rice Chex (or the store brand…whichever ends up being cheaper that week!) with Almond Milk and Sliced Strawberries.

Simple, but so delicious.  The almond and strawberry flavors are kinda like chocolate and peanut butter.  They just work.

These bars…they just work.

And I’m now wishing I’d doubled this recipe.

*sigh*

A couple quick tips…

When a recipe calls for a foil lined baking dish or pan, form the foil around the outside of the dish.

Take it off the bottom of the dish, flip the dish upright and then place the foil right into the dish.

When asked to press a crust into the baking dish/pan/foil, use the bottom of the measuring cup that you used for measuring ingredients.

When letting the bars cool, remove the foil portion from the baking dish after about 5 minutes.  And they’ll cool much faster.

Best part about the foil. No Mess Clean-up.

The bars. Yum. Yum. Yum.

(And I imagine this could be easy converted to a gluten-free recipe by using an all-purpose GF baking mix.)

Strawberry Almond Bars

Adapted from Crisco’s Cherry Almond Bars

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• Pinch salt
• 6 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup strawberry jam/jelly/simply fruit
• 2 Tbsp almond milk

Topping

• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350. Line an 8×8 inch baking dish with foil.  Then coat lightly with cooking spray.
• In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar and salt.  Stir in the oil, 2 tsps of water and vanilla extract.  Toss with a fork until crumbly.  Press the crust evenly into the base of the baking dish.
• Bake for 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, in a small bowl stir together the strawberry jam/jelly/fruit spread with the almond milk. (Regular, soy, rice milk will do.)  In the same bowl that you mixed the crust, toss together the chopped almonds, brown sugar and oil.
• After 15 minutes, spread the jam/jelly over the warm crust and then sprinkle the almond topping evenly over the jam/jelly.
• Bake for 20 more minutes. Let cool completely. (This may take over an hour.)
• Cut into bars and store in refrigerator.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Every have one of those…”Oh, I just have to stop what I’m doing and make this…now”…moments?!  That totally happened to me this weekend. I stopped what I was doing (rather, procrastinated on what I was supposed to be doing) and made these little goodies.  Best part is the recipe makes plenty…enough to eat and freeze!

Here’s what happened before I had that moment.  I had just grabbed Sandy Coughlin’s new book, Reluctant Entertainer, and I was hoping to find a recipe to try this month.  Wouldn’t you know that I flipped to her “Best Strawberry Bread” recipe…and wouldn’t you know that my mom left for us half full boxes of raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries.

How ’bout that.

Mixed Berry Bread it is!!!

I made a few adaptations to Sandy’s recipe…because I wanted to use whole wheat flour, and I also wanted to try it with part-sucanat, part sugar.

Tasty. That is all.

And now for the rest of this week’s Batch Cooking Plan…

• Mixed Berry Bread (recipe below) – done!

• Chicken Enchilada Chili – Double up for lunch or to freeze

• Chorizo and Black Bean Soup – Double up for lunch or to freeze

• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

And I leave you with the Mixed Berry Bread.

Mixed Berry Bread

Adapted from Best Strawberry Bread in The Reluctant Entertainer by Sandy Coughlin

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup sucanat (substitute 1 cup white sugar)
• 1 cup vegetable or canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 2 Tbsp milk
• 3 cups whole wheat flour (If use all-purpose flour, omit the milk)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 cups mixed berries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and grease 2 large loaf pans, or 1 large loaf pan and 8 mini-loaf tin.
2. In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, add all the wet ingredients and stir for a minute or until well blended.
3. Add the dry ingredients and continue mixing batter until smooth.
4. Turn off and fold in the berries. Pour batter into the greased pans.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes (mini-loaves) or 55-60 minutes for large loaves.
6. Let cool slightly before slicing and serving.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

This is my new favorite smoothie!  The boys and I usually having a smoothie with lunch and this has been a hit for the past few weeks.  I will say that it tastes different each time, probably depending on how ripe and sweet the peach is…and of course, how much sweetener is added!  I find that the ripest (softest…without being bruised and damaged) peaches make the best tasting smoothies!!!

Ingredients
1 banana ($.10)
1 peach, seed removed ($.30)
1 cup strawberries, fresh or frozen ($.35)
1 cup milk ($.10)  Rice milk for us!
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed ($.10)
1 Tbsp sweetener…honey, agave, sugar ($.05)
Water to fill blender to 4 cups

Directions
1. Add banana, peach (with or without skin…lots of nutrients in the skin!), strawberries into the blender. Add milk, flaxseed and sweetener.
2. Fill blender with water until the liquid level reaches 4 cups. Don’t have markings…add about 2 cups of water.
3. Blend on low for 30 seconds, then blend on high for 30 seconds, or until smooth and creamy!
4. Drink immediately!!!

Cost $1.00 for 4 8 oz. glasses

Ingredients
2 quarts of strawberries
3 pints of blueberries
4 cups of sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 package pectin

Follow the directions for canning that are found on the pectin packaging! Be sure to read the directions for your pressure canner as well! And keep jars and lids in HOT (not boiling water) water before adding jelly. All important canning instructions can be found HERE!)

1. Wash and dry blueberries and strawberries. Remove stems from strawberries and any strays on the blueberries.

2. In large saucepan, crush blueberries and strawberries with potato masher. Add pectin and lemon juice. Bring to a boil. Add sugar and return to bowl for 1 minute, stirring constantly.  

3. Using tools, transfer jelly into ball jars.

4. Add sealed jars to pressure canner and process at 5 lbs of pressure for 10 minutes.  Follow cooling instructions in your pressure canner’s manual.

5. Label jars and stash away to use later or give as gifts!

**Please be sure to consult Pick Your Own and/or the instructions on your canner and pectin packaging. These directions are just a sketch of the different steps involved in the process!

I made the “executive” decision to invest in some canning equipment…because I am the CEO in my kitchen.

I have fallen in love with my garden…and have wildly elaborate plans for next year’s expansion…which I hope to put into place this fall, so it’s all ready to go in the spring!

In order to preserve and protect my garden’s harvest, I thought it wise to start canning. I’m most looking forward to making salsa and spaghetti sauce. I’ll use the tomatoes from my garden, as well as from a nearby “you pick” market that practically gives the tomatoes away at the end of the picking season!

In the meantime, I’ve made a few jellies, as the prices on berries have been LOW!

Blueberries and strawberries with some lemon juice

A few of the jars “in the bath”

Round 1…of hopefully many!!!  Blueberry-Strawberry Jelly!

Here’s a Red White and Blue smoothie for you all to try this holiday weekend! 

It turns a magnificant purple color when blended!

Ingredients
1 banana
1 cup of milk, rice milk or yogurt
6 large strawberries
About 1 cup blueberries
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed (optional)
2 Tbsp favorite sweetener, like honey, agave syrup or sugar (I used agave)
Enough water to cover all the fruit (about 3-4 cups)

Directions
1. Add all ingredients and blend until smooth.
2. Drink!

So a friend gave me some rhubarb. And well, there’s just but one thing to do with rhubarb…and that is make Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.

But wait.  Perhaps there is more you can do with rhubarb! 

While on a hunt for the best pie recipe, I ran across a few other recipes that called for rhubarb that I wanted to try. I had enough rhubarb and strawberries to make 1 pie, 4 mini tartlets, an 8×8 crumble, and a batch of jam!

After some cutting and prep work, the strawberries and rhubarbs were ready for action!

Peeling rhubarb is not necessary, but I peeled some of the skin off each stalk, just as you would peel the strings out of a celery stalk.

Quarter the strawberries. Place the strawberries on their heads, after cutting off the stems. Cut a cross into each strawberry. Quick and easy!

4 quarts of strawberries and 5 stalks of rhubarb ready to go!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

So the first pie I ever made was just after I graduated from college. I saw an Oprah episode where someone made a strawberry rhubarb pie…so I jumped in the car, ran down to the store to get the ingredients and came home to make it. And it was delicious! I jumped on Oprah.com, knowing that that recipe from 8 years ago would still not be there, but figured she had another one and she did! It was Cindy Crawford’s favorite Strawberry Rhubarb Pie recipe. So if it’s her favorite, it must be low cal, right? Ha!

This pie will be frozen and brought to our Memorial Day BBQ and Party this weekend with our dear friends!

Strawberry Rhubarb Mini Tartlets

For these little pieces of heaven, I used the same filling recipe from Cindy’s recipe and just wrapped the filling up in smaller cirlces of pie crust.  Here is a Raspberry Rhubarb Tart recipe I would have used, had I had some raspberries!

These will be eaten with dinner tonight!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

While browsing around, I found a crumble recipe that called for just rhubarbs, but since I didn’t have enough rhubarb pieces left, I threw in the rest of the strawberries, and oh boy!  Delish!!!  I never eat dessert after lunch, but I did today! 

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble with vanilla ice cream.  The baby was really begging to have a taste

Strawberry Raspberry Rhubarb Jam

I did not have any fruit pectin, which many of the recipes called for, but I did have a small box of raspberry jello!  So using this recipe as a model, I made up my own jam recipe!

Ingredients
5 cups of diced strawberries and rhubarbs
2 cups of sugar
1 3 oz box of raspberry jello

Directions
1. In saucepan, combine diced strawberries and rhubarb pieces with 2 cups of sugar. Let sit for at least 20 minutes, allowing time for sugar to draw out the juices.
2. Once juices have appeared in the saucepan, bring to a boil. Stir often. Boil for about 10 minutes, or until rhubarbs have softened.
3. Reduce heat and let bubble. Add jello packet and stir continuously until the jello dissolves.
4. Remove from heat, let saucepan cool, then place in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Jam will thicken. Place in Mason jars. Jam will last one month in fridge. Put in the freezer if you don’t think you will use it all within a month.

There you have it. A morning up to my elbows in strawberries and rhubarbs! Now we can enjoy every bite of these delicious treats!