~Homemade Fruit Leather~

Uhh, can you say yum? These goodies even passed the hubby test! Back in the day, we kids ate fruit leather. Remember? It was really good, and my favorite flavor was always strawberry. I decided to try this since I like a lot of snacks and don't want to snack on junk food. Healthy snacks are the best way to maintain low weight when eating between meals. This recipe doesn't even call for refined sugar (yay!). It does, however, take a while to cook in the oven (and when I say a while, I really mean about 7 hours...). But if you find yourself home on a sunny Sunday, here is a good treat to feat.

Start with about 2 cups of diced strawberries.

Put a little water in a pot or saucepan and stew (covered) for about 20 minutes or so. The strawberries will get mushy and almost pink in color. And your kitchen will smell heavenly.

Put the strawberries in a blender and puree. You can add sugar to make them sweeter, but I added about 1/8 c. of xagave, and you have to remember that when the leather is done cooking, the strawberries produce their own sweetness. So don't add too much sweetener.

Place some parchment paper or seran wrap (I used the latter) on a cookie sheet with a lip. Rub a little vegetable oil on the plastic, just enough to cover it. Then pour the strawberry puree onto the sheet and make sure it is evenly spread. If your oven goes low enough, cook it on 150-170 degrees for about 7 hours or until you touch it with your finger and it's dry. Mine only goes as low as 200 degrees, so I left the oven door open the whole time. My kitchen was so flippin' hot!

Once cooked, it should look like this. Then score the leather with a knife whatever size you like.

The fruit leather will peel right off!

If you want, you can roll it up to make it a fruit roll-up!

The way I cut mine, it made 10 individual snacks. Next time I might try apple fruit leather! This was a lot of fun to make, and of course, like almost everything I make, easy!

I think the best part about this snack is that is costs practically nothing to make. I bought 2 pounds of strawberries from Sam's Club for 3.49 and used less than half of them for this batch. I could make another batch with what I have left. Making these cost much less than they do in the store. Enjoy!