Fruit Roll Ups

My kids are always asking me for fruit snacks and fruit roll ups.  They're shiny, sugary, and basically a shot of red food dye.  There's a ton of research linking food dyes to hyperactivity in kids.  This article from WebMD lines out the most famous.  http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/childhood-adhd/food-dye-adhd.  Kids snack foods are full of these potentially harmful dyes, so I wanted to produce an alternative.

My challenge was I have no food dehydrator.  My kids LOVE fruit.  Bananas, apples, grapes.  None of these do they like dehydrated.  Since we don't really eat jerky either, I couldn't justify paying for a food dehydrator for the occasional fruit roll up.  If you have one, this will be worlds easier for you.  Either way, it's good to know it's possible.

All measurements are approximate!  I just added until it tasted good to me! I also used frozen strawberries thawed since they were less expensive than fresh.

Ingredients:
2- 8 oz bags of frozen strawberries
1/8 cup sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice.

Start by lining a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Puree strawberries until smooth.  You can't have any chunks.  Transfer the strawberries to a pot on the stove.  Preheat your oven to 170*.  Add the sugar and the lemon juice to your strawberry mixture in the saucepan.  Stir well and heat.  I used medium high heat.  Cook about 12 minutes until your mixture resembles a jam.  Stir as you heat to keep it from scalding.  When the mixture is jammish, transfer it to the parchment lined pan.  Cook in the oven at 170* for six hours.  Check it after 3-4 hours.  If the consistency is right, you can pull it out.  It took 6 hours for mine to be right.  Cut in strips, roll up and store in an airtight jar.

When they're in the oven, they'll look like this!

I hope you enjoy these!  They're not exactly like the store bought ones since they're more fruit leather than sugar roll up, but they're delicious all the same!  Enjoy!!