Strawberry Oat Bars & Strawberry Brie Crostini

Last week we took some time away from the city and went strawberry picking at Ego's in Oro-Medonte. Fresh-picked Ontario strawberries are so much sweeter and juicier than anything you will find in the store here! With more berries than we know what to do with, now comes the kitchen fun. I decided to try to make Strawberry Oat Bars (originally found here). In the original recipe, there is some attempt at pretending they could be healthy, which I don't really believe with all the butter and sugar involved. I doubled the recipe and still had tons of berries to spare, it just meant I used two baking dishes. The timing was also kind of strange, as they didn't look anywhere near done after only 35 minutes in the oven. I ended up leaving them in for over an hour, they are still pretty moist in the middle and crisp on the bottom, with no burnt bits, although some of the edge exposed berries dried out a little.

The final product is delicious, and I am trying to limit myself to under 4 squares a day... hard work. They make a nice breakfast treat, or dessert, or snack - okay, eat them whenever you want! To make them, you will need:

• 2 cups of rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cups of flour
• 2/3 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cups of unsalted butter
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 4 cups chopped strawberries
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp milk

1. Preheat oven to 375 F and line two 8 x 8 (or one 9 x 13) baking pans with parchment paper, with excess paper sticking out of the pans for easy removal.
2. In a large bowl, combine oats, flour, brown sugar, ginger & salt.
3. Melt the butter, and pour into the mix. Stir until everything is evenly combined.
4. Set aside 1 cup of the oat mix for later. Press the remaining oat mix evenly into the bottom of each baking dish. Use your hands, or a spatula, but make sure it is pressed down well to form the base of the bar.
5. In a small dish, mix the cornstarch and 1 tbsp of the sugar (leaving 1 tbsp for later).
6. Scatter about half of the berries over each base. Sprinkle cornstarch sugar mix over the berries evenly. Sprinkle the lemon juice evenly on top. Scatter the remaining berries, followed by the remaining 1 tbsp of sugar.
7. Cover with the reserved oat mix and press down, with berries peaking through all over the place.
8. Bake the bars until you feel good about it. The original recipe said 40 minutes, I went for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, checking on them regularly. The berries bubbled, but nothing ever set in the oven to resemble a solid bar.
9. After cooling in the dish for 20 minutes, move to the fridge to get cooled completely. It is in this stage that they actually start to harden up and it all makes sense.
10. While cooling, in a medium bowl whisk together the icing sugar, vanilla and milk to make a glaze.
11. Pour the glaze over completely cooled bars and return to the fridge overnight. I waited about 8 hours before cutting into squares.

There were of course many more berries we needed to make use of, so we also made a tasty crostini (originally found here):

On slices of French baguette, we melted some sliced brie at 350 F, then topped with sliced strawberries, sliced basil, and drizzled honey over each slice. This was actually our entire dinner for 2, and I was so, so satisfied. Oh, brie...