Pinterest Eats: Fruit bars & CCC cake

Lately I've been thinking about ways to "eat cleaner."  I am not crazy about the idea of pumping a ton of processed foods into the girls, so I have been looking for fairly reasonable homemade options of things we regularly enjoy.
One easy snack I have found that the girls love is Nutri-Grain bars.  I won't lie; I'm a fan too.  But after reading a blog post about all of the unable to name ingredients, I jumped on the author's bandwagon and decided there were too many things in the little bars that I had NO CLUE what were.  Since I was eliminating one of the main fruit and grain vehicles in the girls' diets, I had to find something to replace it.

That's when I came across this recipe from Peas and Thank You. (I just love that blog name!)

Better Berry Nutrigrain Bars

Makes 12-16 bars

• 1 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 1/2 c. oats
• 2 t. baking powder
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/4 c. organic sugar
• 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 c. vegan margarine (i.e. Earth Balance), melted
• One 10 0z. jar 100% fruit blueberry preserves, or your choice of flavor

 I used regular whole wheat flour, regular sugar (with a pinch of brown sugar), and Country Crock margarine.  For the preserves, I chose Polaner All-Fruit Raspberry. 

I think it was really good.  I might have baked it a little too long making it a little crunch on top for the girls, but I just pinched that part off.


I'm not sure how to store these properly, but I will keep working on that.  I've stashed some Polaner All-Fruit blueberry and strawberry in the pantry for next time.


And on a completely opposite end of the spectrum...

(Clean eating only applies in some areas, folks, let's be honest.)

My Pinterest board "Eats."  has the most pins of all my boards, and most of these are something sweet.  I have tried several of the recipes and have been pleased with them.  It's hard for me to dislike any recipe filled with butter, brown sugar, and some sort of chocolate or sprinkle.



This recipe I put in to action when I needed a sweet snack for our college game night and didn't have enough time to make two dozen cookies.
It is seriously SO. EASY.  (and SO delicious!)

It's called Lazy Cake Cookies, but I'd call it Easy Cookie Bars if I were the author--that sounds so much nicer.

• 1 box yellow or white cake mix
• 2 eggs beaten
• 5 T melted butter
• 2 C M&M's or mini chocolate chips

Mix together, put in a greased 9x13 pan and bake at 350 for 20 min

Source: imalazymom.com via Erin on Pinterest

I used regular chocolate chips and a golden butter (or something like that) cake mix.  It's seriously delicious.  I'd make it right now if I had a bag of chocolate chips.

And don't think that I did not enjoy one er, or some of these for breakfast.  Yumm....coffee and cookie bar.  

So this post is a complete contradiction regarding clean eating.  I feel like the clean eating is important, so I will definitely need to take a look into how I can clean up the things I love to eat.  

Which, now that I think about it, all of those things are relatively unhealthy...oh, no.  

I can't think about it anymore.

I'm never giving up chocolate chip cookies.  Never.