Homemade Strawberry Nutri Grain Bars.

Making Homemade Strawberry Nutri Grain Bars today!

And also, I am home and could not be happier!

Not that I did not like Oregon this year, because I did. The weather was incredible the whole forty-two days my family and I were there. Well, I guess there were two days in the middle with tons and tons of low clouds, fog and pure misery. Technically, I guess forty day were gorgeous out of the forty-two.

Even though it is like me to complain, I can’t. I love the sun and blue skis and that is all I saw. Honestly, I barely saw any clouds. It was awesome.

Although, I was inside half the time cooking, but I would have been doing that anywhere, no matter what the weather was. I am always cooking.

Always.

With that said though, I am still so happy to be home.

With all my stuff, my giant kitchen windows and three refrigerators. Yeah, three. Again, it’s awesome.

What? Is three fridges a lot? My family has always had three for as long as I can remember. Big family means lots of food and stocking up on things when they are on sale. It just works, really well.

I almost always have backups for my back ups.

I know, I am so spoiled over here. But I love it.

Oh and um, hello?

The grocery store!!

I have one a mile down the street and another one ten minutes away. Plus, TARGET! It’s been way too long since I stepped foot in Target. I miss Target. It’s time.

Bring on the red!

Now that I got my excitement out, let’s talk about school.

Ugh.

My least favorite topic on this planet.

Alright, that’s a total exaggeration, but you all know school was not my thing. Which is why I raced through it and graduated early, went to the local college and did what I needed to do and said “See ya”!

I may done with school days, but my younger siblings are still chugging on through. Ahh, well sort of. Red and Kai? They barely go, but hey, there is always little Asher who LOVES school to death and could not be more excited to start going a full day kindergarten this year. How can this be, she is not even five yet?

I am pretty sad she is growing up so darn fast. I wish she could just be my little side kick forever. Soon she’ll probably be too cool for me. And trust me, she already has a lot of attitude. It’s scary.

Anyway, I was thinking these bars would be the perfect thing to pack in lunches or to have as after school snacks.

Growing up I used to love Nutri Grain bars in my lunch or as a snack, which is pretty weird since I am not really a baked fruit girl or a jam/jelly girl for that matter. But for some reason I loved those bars……until I realized they are pretty processed and full of sugar.

Not cool.

Enter the homemade strawberry Nutri Grain bar!

It took me three tries to get the recipe right, but the third one was spot on. Super soft and moist, just like the packaged ones. Except with real strawberries and oatmeal.

The fresh strawberry filling is incredible, not so sweet that is gives you a headache, but sweet enough to make you say, “Mmm”. The dough that you are going to wrap the filling up in is almost like a moist muffin. It is so soft, slightly chewy from the oatmeal, with a hint of vanilla and cinnamon.

I am telling you, it’s spot on.

My mom, Asher and I have concluded they may not look as good as the real ones, but they taste a million times better.

Oh and Asher wanted me to share with you how she will be packing these up in her Frosty the Snowman lunch box and taking them to school.

She is very excited.

Oh, and so is Frosty, it just snowed up on those mountain tops.

How is it already back to school time? Where did summer go?!?