I’ve been working hard to eat healthy throughout my pregnancy. I add spinach to nearly everything and I buy organic (and intend to continue doing so after the birth) and drink several cowfuls of milk a day (actually that last one is just a lucky craving.) The sweet tooth that many pregnant women speak of has been eerily missing from my list of cravings, but that doesn’t mean I don’t OD on sugar occasionally when the need arises.

That said, today I am going to share a recipe for Blueberry Bars that I stumbled upon at All Recipes that is decidedly not very healthy but extremely yummy.  You can find the original recipe here, but I am going to post my own little tweaks below. This is a relatively simple, delicious recipe that celebrates fall, fruit, and *joy of all joys* – yellow cake. Dear Lord, I love yellow cake. And just so you know, you should too.

I had originally intended on using cranberries, but our dud of a local supermarket isn’t carrying them yet (and probably won’t until the week before Thanksgiving – boo). I ended up using blueberries (oh, darn!) but you could just as easily use any berry or a combination of several of them. Also, I found that you don’t really need as much butter as the recipe I’m posting below calls for. You could reduce it to 1/2 cup or even less if you so choose.

So here it is, the inaugural recipe on this blog:

BLUEBERRY BARS

Ingredients:

12 oz. blueberries

1 tbsp. white sugar

3/4 cup water

1 (18.25 ounce) yellow cake mix

3/4 cup butter, melted

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup rolled oats

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the blueberries, white sugar, and water. Cook, stirring occasionally until the mixture is thick, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, set aside, and bring to room temperature.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

3. In a large bowl, mix together the cake mix, melted butter, and eggs. Stir in the oats, brown sugar, ginger and cinnamon. Set aside about 1 1/2 cups of the mixture and spread the rest into the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish. Pack down to form a solid crust, getting it as even as possible. Spread the cooled blueberry mixture over the crust. Pinch off pieces of the remaining mixture, flatten them, and place evenly over the cranberry layer.

4. Bake for 35-40 minutes in the preheated oven, until the top is lightly brown. Cool in the pan for about 40 minutes before slicing into bars. Refrigerate leftovers.