Homemade Healthy!!

Happy Independence Day everyone!!!  This week I made a sweet treat to celebrate the holiday with that most people love but don't realize how bad they are for you!!!   This world it full of fruit flavored things, so I ask why not make them out of the actual fruit instead of flavoring that has been processed and died and stuffed with sugar....  well we all know the answer that is why so many of us are making these items our self!!

If you know Josh at all, you know he loves anything fruit related and I mean anything!  His newest love is the Watermelon Cook-Out milkshake...  I find it horrific he thinks it is the best thing since sliced bread...  to each their own I guess!!!!

On his trips to Atlanta for work he always stops and gets snacks like the fruit gummies that are filed with sugar so I decided for this trip I was going to make him a special treat to take with him.  Homemade Strawberry fruit roll-ups! They were actually very simple to make and only had three ingredients.  I found the recipe on Pinterest from a random search, here is the original link Homemade Roll-Ups!  She has an awesome video that walks you through each stage it was really helpful!

So the reciepe,

8oz Strawberries (fresh or frozen)
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
3 Tbsp Sugar

Frozen Strawberries need to be thawed completely you don't want to much juice.  Puree the strawberries using you preferred method, blender, food processor, I used the stick blender I have!  Put the berries in a sauce pan and add the sugar and lemon juice and cook on Med-High for about 15 minutes...  this time will vary depending on how much juice you have from the strawberries.  The goal is to cook most of the liquid out until the mixture gets the consistency of jam! Then you just spread the mixture to about 1/8 inch think of silicon baking mat, wax paper, or parchment paper ( I used this).  Bake in the oven at 170 degrees for 3-4 hours.  If you oven doesn't go down that low 200 will work it just takes less time.  I checked mine every 30 minutes for texture... it will take at least 2.5 hours for sure!

The hardest part about this is getting the right texture.  I did mine right at 3 hours and 20 minutes, you want it to be tacky but not sticky and to much time will turn it into hard candy which wouldn't be terrible!  This is what mine looked like when I pulled them out of the oven.

If you use a silicon baking mat to make the roll-ups you will need to transfer it ti wax or parchment paper to roll up.  Just use a pizza cutter to cut into strips and roll up!  It is really that easy!  Here is my finished product.  It doesn't yield much but you can double and triple easy! I got 4 two inch roll-ups about 12 inches long.  Enough for Josh!  I tasted a tiny piece and they are actually really good, taste like a strawberry!

I will be making these again in bigger batches and I can't wait to try different types of fruit!  I would love to hear everyone suggestions!  Thanks for reading!  Look out for more fun and yummy ideas from our house to yours!