MAKE: Fruit Roll Ups At Home

It’s school lunch time and, let’s face it, kids love those snacky “treat” foods. Wait until they find out the homemade version tastes even better! And you don’t even need a dehydrator.

Ingredients

32 oz of Strawberries (2 packages) hulled and chopped
Juice from 1 Fresh Lemon or 2 tbsp
1/2 Cup Sugar or Honey
Parchment Paper or silicon mat

• Puree the strawberries and lemon juice in a blender or food processor.
• Pour into a pan for the stove. (If you don’t like seeds, strain the mixture while adding to the pan)
• Add the sugar or honey and bring to a boil, then reduce to medium heat for around 15 minutes.
• Pour a thin layer of the mixture onto a parchment paper lined pan or silicon mat.
• Bake in the oven at 170 Degrees for around 3-4 hours or until barely tacky with no liquid mixture left.
• Transfer to a rack and allow to cool completely.
• Peel off matt or paper; If the leather is still moist on the underside, return it to the oven, moist-side up, until dry, about 20 more minutes.
• Lay the leather smooth-side down on a sheet of wax paper and use kitchen shears to cut it into strips on the paper. Roll up the strips and store in zip-top bags for up to 1 week.

If you don’t feel like using strawberries, there are plenty of other fruit option!
Plum: 5 medium, unpeeled, chopped

Peach or nectarine: 5 medium, unpeeled, chopped

Apple: 3 large (Gala or Granny Smith), peeled and chopped

Raspberry: 5 cups

Grape: 3 1/2 cups (preferably Concord), seeded if necessary

Banana: 5 medium, peeled

Mango: 2 large, peeled and chopped

Raspberry-Vanilla: 5 cups raspberries plus the seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean

Strawberry-Banana: 3 cups strawberries, hulled and chopped, plus 2 medium bananas, peeled

Apple-Ginger: 3 large apples, peeled and chopped, plus 1 1/2 teaspoons grated ginger

Spicy Mango: 2 large mangoes, peeled and chopped, plus 1/8 teaspoon each salt and cayenne pepper

I also love this one for Sneaky Green Apple Fruit Leather with 6 small apples and 1 cup baby spinach! Sneaky indeed! Ditto with the Sweet Potato Apple Fruit Leather. 

And with all the Okanagan plums in the stores right now, this Plum Fruit Leather is chock-full of vitamin C, copper and magnesium.

You can also make this Fruit Roll Up Recipe using frozen fruit so you can buy produce while it’s cheap and have these Fruit Roll Ups for school lunches all year long. Just let it thaw out first.

Enjoy!