Strawberry Bars

With strawberry season here in full and you will find more strawberry postings from me.  I LOVE strawberries.  I know I say I LOVE coffee...blueberries....ginger anything.  So does it carry weight when I say "I LOVE" something?  When it comes to strawberries...YES!  In fact, we just made a strawberry raised bed garden.

Let me digress and tell you about my garden.  I am the one who grows the $50 tomato!  I buy all the stuff you are supposed to put in the perfect garden to grow the abundant produce.  What do I get?  ONE tomato; thus, I get the $50 tomato.  I grow the garden that our family can eat in one meal.  You would think I would give up gardening and simply go to the farmer's market to buy from all you green thumbs out there; but, no, not me!

Being a glutton for punishment, my kids were good sports to once again build a garden for their mom.  I have heard that "three is a charm"...can the 10th time mean the charm?  This is my 10th attempt at gardening.  This year we built two raised beds.  This will not be a $50 tomato but a $200 tomato, if I don't get any produce.  Boy, how I hope it works this year.  My husband is a good sport to let me keep trying this gardening pursuit.  So back to strawberries.  One of the raised beds is dedicated to solely strawberries.  I will keep you posted, if I get to make any of my strawberry creations swirling in my brain with my own garden strawberries....I can only hope.

Back to the Strawberry Bars.  This was created by my daughter.  She had an afternoon to create and knew her mother's love for strawberries.  She decided to create a strawberry dessert to surprise me.  Hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did...all the bars were gone way to fast.

2/3 cup Xagave (Click here)
2 cups strawberries
1/2 cup butter softened
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (Click here)
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt

Combine wet ingredients/strawberries in your Bosch Universal blender.  Add the dry ingredients and mix.  Remember, don't over mix the batter as this will make it tough...chewy.  Pour the batter into 2 greased stainless steel pans. (Click here)

Bake 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.  Cool in pans.  When cooled, place on cutting board and cut into strips/bars.  It would be pretty to sift powdered sugar over them.  We ate them before we were able to dress the bars. :)