The best Strawberry shortcake cake!

I recently got a half flat of fresh, organic, local strawberries. They go bad pretty fast so even though we have been eating them daily I needed to come up with some recipes that would use and abundance of them. I used the softest strawberries that were nearing the end of their days for this recipe.

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living

3 c strawberries
6Tbs butter at room temp
3/4 c sugar (Martha calls for a cup so if you must - up the sugar)
1lrg egg
1/2c buttermilk
1tbs vanilla
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Stem and half strawberries and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 and butter a pie plate.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy add in egg, vanilla and buttermilk and continue to beat until mixed. with the mixer running add salt and baking powder then wheat flour and lastly all purpose flour. Mix until combined and pour into pie plate.
Place strawberries in batter cut side down as close together as possible until there is no more room. Bake at 350 for 10mins and then reduce temp to 325 and bake another hour or I put mine on time bake for 45mins and left it in there through cooling.
With the leftover strawberries put them in a pot with a couple of tablespoons of water and sugar and simmer until soft then mash into a sauce. When ready to eat poor sauce over portions of cake- Yummmm!!!

So sorry we gobbled this so fast I didn't even get a chance for pics!

Finally granola/fruit bars that hold their shape!

Last year I tried several granola bar recipes without luck. They would always crumble when I tried to slice them. I developed one recipe that had flavor to die for but it didn't seem to matter what I did they fell apart.
I decided to try again-
While these are not super strong they do seem to hold up to being cut and eaten without crumbling into a thousand pieces. They have great flavor but I may still play with adding maybe some orange zest.

Dry Ingredients:

Mix everything in a large bowl

1 c. rice crispies
1 c. puffed millet
1.5 c oats
1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c dried cranberries
1/4 c raisins
3/4 c chopped dates
1/2 c chopped cashews
1/4 c sliced almonds
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Wet Ingredients

1 flax egg (1tbs flax and 1/4 cup water mix well and let sit to gel)
1/3 c coconut milk
2 tbs coconut oil
1/3 c agave
1 tbs water
Flesh from 1/2 acorn squash cooked- you could sub banana, pumpkin or maybe applesauce

Mash squash and tbs water, add remaining wet ingredients and heat until thoroughly mixed pour mixture over dry ingredients add flax egg and mix well. Press firmly into a rectangular pan and cook at 350 for 30 mins.