Celebrating Spring, Family Wellness, and Tasty Apricot Bars

A little "hello" note from Mother Nature

I finally saw a glimpse of the family I had  seven weeks ago.  Everyone was healthy, happy, busily going about their ways.  The past weeks have been filled with one, two or all children in different states of illness, and finally two sick parents to top it all.  It definitely was a wake up call for me to identify that when someone in the family is sick, we need to slow down our pace of life and get everyone well.

Our daughter seems to have gotten the worst of everything.  The cough, and fatigue we saw were to a point where I wasn't comfortable with just utilizing the homeopathic remedies that we normally use.  A trip to the doctor, several heavy meds, and a couple more days, and we saw a smile and giggle come back to her face today.

Thankfully, I think we are on a path to wellness and certainly ready to welcome in Spring!  Mother Nature is sending out little notes here and there.  We have a stone fruit tree that produces 4 different kinds of fruits - apricot, plum, peach, and nectarine.  The apricot is blossoming right now, and I was able to show the middle son pollination by bees in real time.

Bee Pollination

Seeing the apricot tree reminded me that I had some apricots in the freezer waiting to be turned into something yummy (does this sound like a "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" moment).  I looked up apricot bars on the internet and found this recipe for Apricot Bars   I made a few modifications to my liking but I think you could follow their recipe and it would be super tasty.

Honey sweetened stewed apricots

Mixing the crust

Scraping the apricot mixture into the Cuisinart

Apricot Bars

My version of Apricot Bars

4 cups of stewed and pureed apricots
1/2 cup honey for sweetener (use more if you don't like tart desserts)
2 Tablespoons of Grand Marnier liqueur

2 cups of spelt flour
3/4 cups of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of Sea Salt
1/2 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 cups rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Butter a large baking dish

In a large saucepan combine apricots and honey.  Cook until the apricots are soft and fall apart when mashed with a potato masher.  Add in the orange liqueur.

Let fruit cool, then puree in a food processor until smooth.  Set aside, or make the day before.

In the food processor add all dry ingredients (except oats), and butter.  Combine to make a coarse sand like texture.  Once combined mix in oats by hand, and press 3/4 of the mixture into bottom of prepared glass baking dish.

Evenly, spread apricot puree on top of crust, and then finish with a final topping of the last 1/4 of oat crust in crumble like form.

Bake for at least 1 hour and the topping is a golden color.  ( Mine took about 1 hour 15 minutes)

Cool, slice into squares and enjoy.  Refrigerate to ensure freshness.
**** This recipe could easily be adapted to gluten free.  Replace with gluten free flour and oats.

Ready for tasting!

We are very ready for Spring to arrive in full force!  Are you?