Happy Halloween!

I have to work tonight, so we wont be home for the Trick or Treaters.  So, I figured I would make some festive Halloween treats for the kids at the center!  I can't eat these because of my food allergies, (unfortunately for me, but fortunate for my waistline) but I just love making fun treats for others to eat!  I hope the kids like them!

I got these ideas straight off of Pinterest!  They were super easy to make and did not require too many ingredients! 

Oreo Spider cookies!  Aren't they cute?  Normally, spiders really creep me out, but these little guys are so cute...I don't think I would mind spiders too much if they all looked like this! 

 You can find the recipe here.

I also made little witches hats.  If you have been on Pinterest, you have seen these for sure!  They were so easy.  You can find the recipe here.

I hope everyone has a safe Halloween!

This is where I have been....

With Christmas just around the corner I have been super busy with lots of Christmas activities...

We are not really decorating the house this year but I have been getting into the Christmas Spirit by doing some of this....

and some of this....

and other crafty things like this....

Handmade gift tags!  I can't take the credit for this great idea...check out the tutorial at Inchmark 

And to keep my sanity a lot of this....

What are you doing to get ready for the holidays?

Wordless Wednesday

Current Bloodsugar: 126

Today's Prompt: “Wordless Wednesday” – Share a picture or video on your blog! (need ideas for subject matter? How are you getting ready for the Thanksgiving festivities? Baking in advance? Adding some extra exercise to your schedule? Cleaning to prepare for company? Show us!)

Sugar-free chocolate chip cookies (made with xylitol)

Whole grain Peanut Butter Chews

Sugar-free Snickerdoodles

Jordan Rolls, dough rising

Second Rise, Jordan Rolls

Finished Jordan rolls...yummm!

Mouthwatering Monday

Current Blood sugar:   148

Today's Prompt: “Mouthwatering Monday” – Carrot sticks and potato chips have a similar crunch, but the similarities end there. What’s your favorite snack? 

My favorite snack?  This one is not hard at all.  For a salty snack I love mixed nuts.  They are low in carb and work well for satisfying my hunger and not wrecking my blood sugar.  I have recently started making my own roasted nuts, it's cheaper that way!   I also like to make sugar coated pecans using xylitol (natural, low carb sugar replacement).

For a sweet snack I like dark chocolate.  Sometimes I eat dark chocolate chips, sometimes it is a piece of an organic dark chocolate candy bar.  Dark chocolate is good for you in moderation and it is low in carbs, so it works well in my book!  I have also experimented with several recipes for sugar free cookies and brownies.  These generally turn out well and are low carb.  I tend to save making those for special occasions...they don't last long in our house! 

Here is a recipe for homemade roasted pecans and one for sugar coated pecans. 

Spicy Roasted Pecans
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
A dash of cumin
2 cups pecan halves and pieces
Preheat oven to 350°F. Melt butter in medium skillet over medium heat. Add chili powder, salt and pepper and stir to blend. Remove from heat. Add pecans and stir to coat. Transfer to rimmed baking sheet. Bake until pecans are golden, about 8
minutes. Cool. Coarsely chop pecans. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.) from: http://www.angelfire.com/la3/gourmetkarl/spicedpecan.html 

or just use salt to taste if you prefer plain non-spicy pecans
 
Sugar Coated Pecans
this is a good link to a recipe I have done in the past that works.  Use whatever sugar replacement you like, if that is what fits your needs! 

Mouthwatering Monday

Current Blood sugar: 43....well this is exactly current, but I thought I would share.  This was what I woke up to at 3am this morning.  43!!!  That is low and scary....good thing I woke up.  I guess I usually do and this is not the first 40 something I have seen in the middle of the night.  It doesn't happen often but it is scary every time!

Today's Prompt: “Mouthwatering Monday” – What’s your favorite entree? How does it affect your blood glucose?

Now this is my kind of prompt!  I love cooking and baking.  I especially love experimenting with recipes to make them diabetes friendly.  My absolute favorite entree?  It is awfully hard to choose since it all depends on what kind of mood I am in that day.  However, there is one entree that makes me happy every time it graces my lips....homemade chicken with mushroom Marsala sauce and garden fresh green beans sauteed with garlic and balsamic, a side salad and some homemade bread...yum!

 

Homemade pesto bread

 

 In case you didn't know, I am big on homemade stuff.  I make all of our bread, all of our meals at home are made from scratch with very few bottled or boxed ingredients and I even make homemade crackers when I have time!  Now this may sound like me bragging about all the wonderful things I make (are you jealous yet?) but I don't mean to sound that way.  I just love making things for myself and hubby.  I love fresh food from our garden.  I find that homemade food, when I know all of the ingredients, makes managing my blood sugar so much easier.

To answer the prompt question, the favorite meal I listed above has a very predictable affect on my blood sugar.  (Another reason why I love that dish!)  Since green beans are a low carbohydrate food and the Marsala sauce I make only has a few carbs too, this meal is overall low carb.  The homemade whole grain bread is only 15-20 grams of carbs per slice.  So adding it all up this is a hearty meal for usually less than 40 grams of carbs.  The lower carb a meal is, the more predicable my numbers will be afterward...and I love the moments of predictability, so few and far between.

My other favorite meal is homemade pizza...you can read about it and see my recipes in my previous post Welcome Back Pizza

Welcome Back Pizza!

I have a hard time with pizza, generally it causes very high blood sugar (sometimes for hours after the meal).  That wonderful combination of carbohydrates and fat that make pizza so yummy is what makes many diabetics cringe at the thought of blood sugars after pizza night.  I have only eaten pizza twice in the last 3 years since my diagnosis, each time resulting in hours of high blood sugar.  Lately I have craved pizza...who can blame me?  In light of my cravings for this not-so-good for me food, I decided to experiment with making pizza at home. 

The other night, I made pizza with homemade pesto sauce, homemade mozzeralla, homegrown tomatoes, mushrooms, all natural (preservative free) pepperoni, and a few fresh basil leaves.  What a great success...not only was the pizza amazing, I did not have the same adverse reaction with my blood sugar as the typical restaurant or frozen pizza.  In fact my blood sugar was perfect following this yummy homemade meal!

I made the pizza dough a few weeks ago and froze it for a quick meal on a busy weeknight.  Basil pesto sauce is something I make every summer from the basil we grow in the garden.  The mozzarella I made using the 30-minute mozzarella kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company.  If you like mozzarella cheese you should order this kit!  It is so easy and makes great cheese (and it really only takes about 30 minutes)!

Since I had all of the ingredients already prepared, the pizza only took about 20 minutes to assemble and 15 minutes to cook!  I can't tell you how satisfying it is to eat pizza again!  Below are the recipes for the pizza crust and pesto sauce.

I would love to hear your recipes for homemade pizza!
 
Herbed Whole Wheat Pizza Dough (from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking)
Ingredients:
3 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tbls plus 1 1/2 teas instant yeast
1 1/2 cups cool water
1 tbls honey
1 tbls olive oil
2 teas salt
1 tbls dried oregano
1 tbls dried basil
1/2 teas cayenne pepper

Measure 2 cups of flour into medium mixing bowl, and stir in the yeast.  Combine the water and honey, add to the flour mixture and stir well to mix.  Cover and let rest for 1 hour. 
Stir in the olive oil, salt, herbs, cayenne and then the remaining 1 3/4 cups flour.  Turn the dough out onto a very lightly floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes.  Return the dough to the bowl, cover and let rise about 1 1/2 hours. 
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide in half.  Lightly form each half into a loose round, cover and let rest for about 20 minutes. 
Place a baking stone in oven and preheat to 375.  Roll out each half of the dough into a 12-inch round or 10x12-inch rectangular shape.  Place the dough on the baking stone, roll up the edges to make a small rim around each piece.  Prick each piece all over with a fork.  Bake crusts on the stone, one at a time for 10 minutes each. 
Remove crust (let cool and freeze) or heat oven to 425, cover dough with toppings and cheese and then bake until done (about 10-20 minutes).

*I take each piece of dough and cut it in half again to make small personal size pizza crusts.


Basil Pesto
Ingredients:
4 cups basil leaves, packed
1 cup Parmesan (see note below) *
1 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 cup Pine Nuts (or Walnuts, or mix of both)
3-6 medium garlic cloves
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a food processor or blender, chop nuts, add basil, add garlic, add salt and pepper, pour EVOO slowly into processor while blending.  Pour prepared pesto into ice cube trays, cover and freeze.  When frozen, remove from trays and place in freezer bags or containers and return to the freezer.  The cubes are perfect for making sauce, adding to soups, or any other dishes. 

* If you are freezing the pesto, do not add the cheese until you are ready to use (I usually add cheese while I am heating up the pesto).  If you are making a small batch of pesto and will be storing it in the fridge, then add the cheese when you are blending.

Holy Hot Peppers!

Our hot pepper plants are in full swing!  This year we planted Jalapenos, Carribean Red Habeneros, Thai Chilis, Ancho Chilis, and Cayenne Peppers.  For those of you who are not familiar with hot pepper varieties, here is a brief hotness rating.....

Ancho Chili: Mild and flavorful
Jalapenos:  Medium
Cayenne:  Hot, eye's watering, pass me the milk kind of hot, but very tolerable when cooked into spicy dishes
Thai Chili: A little hotter than the cayenne
Habeneros:  Imagine eating a ball of fire.

Hubby likes it hot so we decided to plant enough peppers to melt the sun.  This year we started our peppers in January, from seeds under our indoor grow light.  Most hot peppers have a "days till maturity" range between 60-90 days.  So starting them early gives those feisty little fruits a head start....meaning we get hot peppers in the hottest part of the summer and will continue to harvest into September and possibly October.  The habeneros alone take up to 90 days for the fruit to ripen.  Our habenero plant is covered in fruits and one is just now starting on the path the fiery red.    We are getting handfuls of peppers every day and so hence begins the preservation process!

We have been drying the Cayenne and Thai chilis in the oven at 150 degrees.  This usually takes about 12 hours.  We then store them in jars and they last us about a year.  I imagine they keep for longer but we usually use up our batch in a year's time.

I also made a batch of Pickled Jalapenos from The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving.  They look beautiful...still waiting for them to sit a while before tasting them!  It's such an easy recipe....

Pickled Jalapenos
 
Ingredients

1 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
4 tsp liquid honey
2 tsp pickling spice
1/2 tsp pickling salt
2 cloves garlic, halved
1/2 lb jalapeno peppers, thinly sliced

Directions

1.  Prepare canner, lids and jars.  You will need two 8oz jars for this recipe.
2.  Thinly slice the jalapenos.  I left the seeds in, you can remove the seeds if you prefer a milder finished product. 

*Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after handling the peppers, before touching your eyes or mouth!*

 
2.  Combine the vinegar, water, honey, pickling spice and salt in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil over high heat, remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes.

3.  Place 1/2 clove of garlic in each hot jar.  Divide the peppers evenly between the two jars.  Add another 1/2 clove of garlic.

4.  Return pickling liquid to a boil and then pour over pickles to within 1/2 inch of the rim.  Place hot lids and bands on jars.  Process at 10 minutes according to the directions for your boiling water canner.

Enjoy!

Are you ready for some more jam?

So...here is the next installment of jams that I have experimented with.  Spiced Blueberry Honey Jam...the name says it all...if there were a smell button on this blog, you would know that this is a fragrant jam that has delicate yet complex flavors that make it very unique! 

Spiced Blueberry Honey Jam
from the Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen coarsely chopped bluenerries
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup liquid honey*
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 pouch liquid fruit pectin

* Use local honey if available to support your local beekeepers (and add the flavors of your local flora).  If you don't have access to local honey, be sure to use organic or high quality honey that is not cut with corn syrup.

Directions:

1. Place blueberries, sugar, honey, lemon juice and nutmeg in a large stainless steel saucepan.

2. Bring to a full boil over high heat and boil hard for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

3. Remove from heat and stir in pectin.

4. Ladle into hot jars and process for 10 minutes in your boiling water canner...follow directions for your canner for processing jams.

Enjoy!  This recipe yielded four 8oz jelly jars.  

Sugar Free Blueberry and Peach Jams

So continues my quest for jam perfection!  Along with the large amount of blueberries I purchased a few days ago, I also made a trip to the Farmer's Market and bought some beautiful peaches.  I decided to experiment with my bounty and made some beautiful and tasty sugar free jams!

First off, being diabetic, I am always looking for an alternative to sugar.  I have found what I consider the golden child of sugar substitutes!  Xylitol is an all natural sweetener derived from fruits and vegetables.  It has little to no effect on my blood sugar and it substitutes 1 to 1 for sugar in most recipes.  I love it because it has no weird aftertaste and it is all-natural.  I order my xylitol online.

Although xylitol works as a great sugar substitute, I was not sure how it would work in jam.  When making jam, you usually add pectin....of course you can cook down the jam without pectin, but this takes much longer and I just don't have that kind of patience!  Store bought pectin has added sugar to help with the gelling and the preservation of the jam.  This creates a dilemma when using a sugar substitute.  I have read that it is possible to make jam using pectin and sugar substitutes but most recipes recommend doing this as a freezer jam.  I was interested in doing canned jam so I did a little research on making sugar-free jam and found this wonderful product...

 

Pomona's Universal Pectin is wonderful!  Use it for making low-sugar, no sugar added, and sugar free (using sugar substitute) jam.  You can use any kind of sugar substitute including splenda, stevia, xylitol, and honey.  The pectin is easy to use and just has one extra step that is different from other store bought pectin.  I purchased this at our local natural foods store, but I think you can order it online as well!

So...here is the recipe I used for my sugar free jam.  I halved the suggested recipe in the Pomona's insert and made half batches of each blueberry and peach.  The recipe listed below is for the half batch.

Sugar-Free Jam (using xylitol)

Before you start jamming, prepare the Pomona's Pectin Calcium Water following the directions in the box insert.  The calcium water is shown in the picture above, it keeps for months in the fridge and you only use a small amount per recipe, so you will only need to do this step once. 

Ingredients

2 cups mashed berries or peaches 

2 tbls lemon juice

3/4 cup xylitol (use less or more depending on your taste)

1 teaspoon Calcium water (for blueberry jam) or 2 teaspoons calcium water (for peach jam)

1 teaspoon Pectin powder (for blueberry jam) or 1.5 teaspoons Pectin powder (for peach jam)

Directions

1.  Prepare canner and jars.

2. Measure fruit and place in a large stainless steel pot, add lemon juice.

3. Add calcium water and stir well.

 

 

4. Measure xylitol in a separate bowl and add pectin powder, mix well.

5. Bring fruit mixture to a boil.

6. Add xylitol/pectin powder to fruit mixture and stir vigorously until pectin is dissolved.  

7. Return to a boil and boil rapidly for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.

8. Fill hot jars with 1/4" headspace, seal with lids and boil in boiling water canner for 10 minutes.  Follow your canner recommendations for processing jams.

 

I filled 4 oz jars, since I don't eat a ton of jam, these sizes work better for me (and they make the cutest gifts!).  I yielded three 4 oz jars of peach with a little left over and four 4oz jars of blueberry with a little left over.  They taste amazing!  I am pretty darn proud of myself being that this is the very first time I have experimented with sugar free jams!

We're jammin, jammin...

I haven't posted in several days because I have been elbows deep in produce and spending lots of time with my canner.  My poor hubby is beginning to think he has been replaced by the steamy, hot dates I have had with my Presto.  In the last few days I have canned beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and thanks to the season's bounty at the farmer's market and some beautiful blueberries (on sale!) at the local natural foods grocery, I have have begun experimenting with jams and conserves. 

So over the next few posts I figure I will update ya'll on what jam/conserve recipes I've been experimenting with!  Starting with....


Maple Blueberry Conserve with Walnuts from The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving
 (this book is great for someone who is new to canning, or for someone who routinely gets small batches of produce!)  The recipe below is for a single batch.  I doubled the recipe and got about four 8oz jelly jars out of the recipe.

Ingredients

  *Make sure you get all of your ingredients together before you start working.

2 cups fresh (or frozen) blueberries
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup raisins (I left these out)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 tsp each: ground allspice and ginger

Combine blueberries, water, maple syrup, and lemon juice in a medium stainless steel saucepan.  Bring to a boil over high heat, cover, reduce heat and boil gently for 5 minutes or until fruit is tender, stirring occasionally.

Stir in sugar and raisins.  Return to boil, reduce heat and boil gently, uncovered, until mixture will form a light gel, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  I heated it to 220 degrees F.

Remove from heat and stir in walnuts, allspice and ginger.

Ladle into hot jars and process for 10 minutes in a boiling water canner (follow your canner's instructions for canning jams and conserves) 

Makes about 1 1/2 cups if using the recipe above.


I tasted the conserve before canning it and it tasted so yummy!  This particular recipe has a little too much sugar for me, but hubby will love it and I think it will make great gifts!  We have not broken open a jar yet, but hubby can't wait to make pancakes this weekend and use this as a topping!  Yum! 

Who can blame me for having Bob Marley's "Jammin'" stuck in my head for the last few days....

When your hubby informs you he is going to smoke his butt....

You either have a very interesting story to tell, or you are about to spend your Sunday watching your hubby smoke a Boston Butt in his homemade smoker!  Lucky for me, my hubby was doing the latter and we had a wonderful meal to end an awesome weekend.

This weekend screamed Spring here in Central NC.  Saturday was a little cool but sunny and beautiful and Sunday was downright magnificent.  On Saturday, hubby and I finished some lingering yard work.  I planted our lettuce crop and put some finishing touches on the garden fence project.  We also learned a great method of herding the chickens to the garden from their coop and back without stressing them or ourselves (see previous post about me chasing chickens around the garden :-)

Sunday was an early start of smoking, cooking, baking, and cleaning.  Hubby got up at 8am to start the fire in the smoker and I made him some french toast from homemade bread and bacon.  After breakfast, I baked sugar-free all natural chocolate chip cookies (for me) and all-natural peanut butter cookies for hubby and our pending guests for the evening!  After baking the cookies, I started boiling the Northern Beans on the stove and mixed together a baked bean sauce from scratch (an amazing recipe I found here).  By lunch we had baked beans ready to go on the smoker and a Boston Butt well on it's way to perfection!  After lunch I headed out to the yard and picked up all of the sticks the oak trees have been dropping....thinking to myself "this is why our parents made us pick up sticks as kids"....that was not a fun job!  I spent the rest of the day relaxing by the garden fence watching the chickens scratch and hubby continued to monitor the smoker.

The best part of the weekend came on Sunday night.  My folks and my brother, sister-n-law, and their two boys came over for dinner.   We had the smoked pork, homemade baked beans, slaw, cornbread and oven potatoes, cookies for dessert and a whole lot of family fun! 

It was a perfect end to a perfect weekend.  I am happy that I can finally get to work in the yard and start planning more for the Spring.  I couldn't help but laugh as my dad said "love what you are doing with the back forty".  But, even though our humble acre is not a huge farm, I continue to love what we can do and how it helps me visualize our dreams for the future....maybe one day we really will have a "back forty"!

Bluegrass, Baking, Snow and Seedlings

So this weekend has been one of many firsts....I will start with the one that prompted some things and prevented others!

This weekend we had our first and probably last big snow of the 2009-2010 winter season.   A winter storm hit central NC on Friday night and dumped about 6 inches here in our area.  Nice fluffy snow, topped off with a layer of sleet.  Perfect for sledding!  I love it when it snows, it is so quiet and beautiful.  But, because we live in the South, snow pretty much shuts down everything.  Schools close, places of work close, and the roads are treacherous since our Department of Transportation isn't exactly prepared for any amount of snow over an inch. 

The chickens just ventured out of their house today after I shoveled the snow from their pen and put down layers of fresh, dry straw....spoiled girls!  The pups have been extra hyper, something about the snow that makes them super excited.  The wild birds have devoured every last seed in the feeder.  This beautiful, fluffy snow meant me and the hubby would spend the entire weekend at home, inside, neglecting the many things that need to be done outside to prepare for Spring.  So this lead me to...

The first time I have made homemade bread.  It started on Friday.  I picked up The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book from the library.  This book has detailed step-by-step instructions on how to make bread from scratch.  It even goes into details about how the bread should look and feel at every stage of the process.  It's like having another person, a bread-making genius, in the kitchen with you!  So, on Friday I slaved away over the hot stove (this is what I tell my hubby) to make my first loaf of whole grain bread.  To my surprise my first loaf turned out perfect and yummy!  I even went as far as to make french toast for the hubby on Sat morning with the homemade bread.

Of course, being holed up in the house all weekend...I couldn't stop at one loaf!  So on Sunday, while the snow was still holding fast, I tried a different recipe....Whole Grain Pesto Bread.  Now I am not usually one to brag, but I am too proud of myself!  These loaves turned out great!  Not bad for a girl on her first bread-making adventure! 

I also made some black-eyed pea soup and cornbread (can't take credit for the cornbread, comes in a mix add egg, etc you get the drift)!  But cooked in a cast iron skillet, makes all the difference.  That's a well seasoned pan there (almost got it all out in one piece!)

 

Other firsts this weekend....Hubby's band The Rye Mountain Boys had their maiden gig scheduled for this weekend, Sat night, when everything was shut down and snowed in...so...the gig had to be rescheduled, but I got to listen to the hubby practice in the house most every evening.  This is a rare occasion, as he is usually in his music room, but practicing by the fire must have been more appealing to him!  So as he practiced and I made bread, I couldn't help but think this was what we were meant to do...play music and make food.  Seems kinda crazy but I figure we were both equally happy with ourselves at that moment. 

Ah yes, and I can't forget...our first seedlings of the year!  We have officially started the growing season here in our household.  Under grow lights we have lettuce seedlings pushing their way through and our hot peppers just started rearing their hot little heads last night!  We usually straight sow everything in the garden except the hot peppers.  This year we are also trying our hand at a early spring garden with lettuce and carrots. 

 

So a weekend of firsts, and what a wonderful weekend it was.  Schools are still closed today and tomorrow, hubby worked from home, and I, well I don't have a "day job" so I just did the usual.  As we "recover" from the "massive snow storm" and things are slowly thawing out, I feel like Spring can't come fast enough.  I long for the warm days and all of the green that comes with Spring but I do actually enjoy the slowness of Winter.  Sometimes I think we forget how quickly things change.  Before we know it Spring will be knocking us upside the head with flowering Red Maples, seedlings galore, garden chores, bluegrass gigs and festivals, and a long list of work we will never finish.  That's when we will look back on weekends like these and long for the slowness of Winter.  

Breakfast Bar Goodness

I tried my hand at some homemade mixed berry breakfast bars the other day.  This was my first attempt at this new recipe which I modified from one I found online.  They turned out pretty darn good!  These are great for breakfast on the go or an afternoon snack.  Although I did not have fresh berries since they are off season, I used some frozen ones.  If you can't find fresh berries or they are not locally in season, frozen berries from previous seasons or organic frozen berries from your grocery store are just as nutritious and versatile as fresh berries (and cheaper if you are purchasing berries that are not in season!)  Can't wait to make them again when berry season comes around!

I modified the recipe just a little.  Instead of brown sugar I used xylitol, an all natural, low carb, sugar replacement, to make them a little more diabetes friendly and I added all natural vanilla extract to add the flavor that I missed from taking out the brown sugar.  You could also add molasses and natural sugar if you were not using brown sugar to add that same flavor.  All in all they are not too sweet and perfectly filling for breakfast and make great snacks for your kiddos (or in my case hungry hubby).  Here's the recipe for those of you who want to try it out! 

Berry Breakfast Bars
16 oz fresh berries  (or frozen, or canned)
2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch (or substitute 5 tbsp of all purpose flour for thickening)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cup oats
1 cup brown sugar (or 1 cup xylitol + few teaspoons vanilla)
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup butter (I know this is alot, I actually used only 3/4 a cup)

1 Set oven temperature to 400 F degrees. Grease a 9x13x2-inch baking pan.
2 Thaw berries if frozen. Warm berries in saucepan until the juices run. (If using canned berries, omit this step and simply drain berries from can, reserving juices.) Strain berries and reserve one cup of juice, adding water if necessary to make one cup. Put berries aside and combine cooled reserved juice with cornstarch and lemon juice.  Return juice to saucepan, return saucepan to stove.
3 Cook and stir until thickened. Gently stir in berries. Set aside.
4 Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and spices. Cut in butter until crumbly. Press 2/3 of mixture into greased baking pan. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool slightly; spread berries over this crust. Crumble remaining flour/oat mixture over berry layer and press lightly. Bake 20-25 minutes more, until lightly browned.
5 Cool in pan. Cut into 24 bars.

 Yum...thickened berry mixture

Finished product!