Monday, February 4, 2013

Snack Edition: Homemade Fruit Snacks

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Hellooooooo friends!  Did everyone enjoy their super bowl festivities??  :)  Also, if anyone has any suggestions on something they'd like to see me cook, please comment and I'll be happy to take it on!!
So today is my first NON-dinner blog and I'm STOKED people....STOKED!  I worked ALL weekend cooking and baking, making a bunch of little snack items SPECIFICALLY for the change up that I had intended to make, so get ready for some craziness!
This first one I did I got, of course, from Pinterest (the actual site it linked to is linked to that Pinterest!).  Anything that would allow me to use my skull and crossbones ice trays was a recipe I was down for!
So first thing's first: I had both frozen and fresh strawberries, which the recipe stated either could be used, but I chose to use up my frozen strawberries!  I put 2 1/2 cups into a sauce pan, along with 1/2 cup of fresh-squeezed lemon juice (not sure if the lemon juice needed to be fresh-squeezed or not, it didn't say, so I chose to do fresh!) and heat it on medium-low until the frozen fruit started to soften.
Once that was done, I poured it into my blender and blended it, putting it aside after that to cool a bit (maybe 3 minutes or so, maybe longer depending on how warm the mixture was prior).
When it was cooled sufficiently, I put the liquid mixture back into the saucepan, added 2 tablespoons of honey and then slowly whisked in 1/2 cup of unflavored gelatin.  Be careful with this stuff, you will need to really whisk it while you're pouring it (a great arm workout for sure!) because it starts to thicken very quickly.  This particular time I noticed I probably didn't need all of the gelatin, as the original recipe said to 'pour' the mixture into the molds and I actually scooped it.  NOT TO FEAR MY FRIENDS, as it still worked, so just make sure to keep an eye on the thickness.
So as I said, once I was done whisking, I scooped the mixture into my rubber skull and crossbones ice molds (any molds you have will suffice, I'm sure!), and put them into the fridge for about an hour to an hour and a half and VOILA!  Homemade fruit snacks!  My husband said they tasted like the frozen fruit bars taste like, just not frozen!  :)  I say yums!
So, if I did the calculating correctly, these fruit snacks are about 9-12 calories per piece, depending on size, of course, and much better than buying the prepackaged ones!  It was also only $0.15/piece!  Yay!
Here's the recipe!

2 1/2 cups strawberries (fresh or frozen and you can use any type of fruit, probably more like any kind of berry)
1/2 cup lemon juice (fresh-squeezed is better but try it how you like!)
2 tablespoons honey

1/2 cup unflavored gelatin

Happy snacking everyone!  See you back here for more snacking goodness soon!

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