You know that game, right? The old Atari game that you played with the little knobby game controller (that you actually had to plug into the console). The ball bounced around from your paddle to colored bricks and you had to clear all the bricks. As you go through the game, each level gets more bricks and even adds a few bricks that you never clear out. Anway, by the time you get to the upper levels, the ball is bouncing around so maddly that it's hard to follow on the screen.
Trying to remember who really likes to eat raisins and who would rather chew their toenails off instead of even looking at a raisin can be a bit tricky at 6 am. So, last year, I got into the really bad habit of buying pre-packaged food for their lunches. Because, for some reason, my kids think that if you have food that comes in a store bought package it automatically tastes WAY better than anything in a Ziploc bag. Go figure.
But, this year I am determined to pack real food, better food and more whole foods in their lunches. For my oldest, this is going to be a little tough because he really doesn't like whole apples - unless you give him something to scoop with it. He also doesn't like raisins, grapes, oranges, or bananas packed in his lunch.Hmmm...
My mother had found a link on Pinterest for homemade fruit roll-ups. I thought it might be a possibility, because who doesn't like fruit roll-ups? The directions SEEMED simple, but sometimes, those are the projects that get me in trouble.
One day, a friend from church handed me a plastic bag of figs from her tree and I decided to give the fruit roll-ups a try.
You can find the original link here: http://www.loveumadly.com/2012/04/100-pure-love-for-100-real-fruit-snacks/
But here is what I did this time around: Using my handy-dandy food processer, I dropped in the figs, cleaned and de-stemmed. I also found a stray strawberry-applesauce cup that I decided to throw in as well. Hit puree.
Once it was a nice smooth consistency, I spread it out on my silicon baking mat & cookie sheet. If you don't have a baking mat, I would HIGHLY recommend investing in one. I use mine all the time. It helps eliminate the need for a cooking spray.
I didn't measure how much fruit puree I ended up with. The original link called for 1.5 cups, I really think I might have had about 2 cups. Once I spread the mix out in a thin layer, a good bit of my mat was covered.
Then I put the mat & cookie sheet in the oven at 170 degrees farenheit. The original link above calls for 150, but mine only went down to 170. Then I set my oven timer to turn off after 8 hours. Again, I strayed from the original link a bit here. She suggests leaving the oven door open a bit to let moisture out. I couldn't gt mine to stay open unless I opened it up about 3 inches. I was afraid it would let too much air out so I kept it closed, but that didn't seem to effect my end result - which was:
After the 8 hours and a little cooling time, I took the cookie sheet out of the oven. I flipped the sheet upside down and on top of my silicone mat then flipped the whole thing back upside down (think about when you put a plate over your freshly baked cake then flip it over to get it out).
I used a pizza cutter to cut the dried fruit into 6 strips. I then cut wax paper into 6 strips and rolled the fruit up. I couldn't get my rolls to look as pretty as the original link and had to use just a bit of tape to keep it from coming un-rolled.
You might notice in the pic that there are only 5 rolls. That's because my husband was a bit skeptical about the outcome so we split one. And it was quite tasty! A bit of cross between a fig newton and a fruit roll up, which I think all four of the kids will love! Success!!
One other note, after going through the process, it seems to me like setting the oven at such a low temp for such a long time ends up being a food dehydrator. I don't have one so I couldn't try it that way, but it might just work if you do happen to have one.
The original link has suggested fruit combinations. I've only tried the one I listed above. But, it seems to me like it'd be pretty hard to go very wrong. I've been thinking about trying a veggie roll-up, too. But I'll let you know if I do. :-)
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