PALEO LEMON BARS

It all started with a recipe for lemon-lime macaroon bars in the May 2013 issue of Sunset Magazine.  They sounded delicious, but there was nothing Paleo about the nearly three cups of sugar or the butter, flour or cornstarch in the ingredients.  It got me thinking, though.  The trickiest part was figuring out what to use for the filling, since the original recipe was mainly sugar.  I decided to try sweet potatoes and voila!  They worked fine.  I have now brought these to couple of non-Paleo potlucks and people have really liked them.  No one can believe that they contain no flour or sugar.

Ingredients:

Crust

2 cups shredded coconut

1 1/2 cups almond flour

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon honey

1/2 cup coconut oil

2 large eggs

Filling

2 cups mashed sweet potatoes

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons each lemon and lime zest

1/4 cup each lemon and lime juice

• Peel a couple of sweet potatoes.  Cut them into large chunks, place them in a large saucepan, cover with water and boil until soft (about 20 minutes.)  Mash the sweet potatoes thoroughly until smooth.  You want to avoid leaving any large chunks that could ruin the texture of the filling.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Spread the coconut on a low sided baking sheet and toast at 350 degrees for 5 minutes or until golden brown.
• Combine the coconut and other crust ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth.
• Grease the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.
• Spread the crust mixture evenly across the bottom of the baking dish.
• Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees or until light golden brown.
• Remove crust from oven and let cool for 20 minutes.
• Blend the sweet potatoes with the other filling ingredients and beat until smooth.
• Pour the filling over the crust.
• Bake in 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes.  Remove from oven if the filling starts to crack.  You don't want it to become too dry.
• Let cool and chill for several hours.  Cut into bars and serve.

If any of you out there are cooking for people who don't like coconut, you can substitute extra almond flour for the coconut and ghee for the coconut oil.  The texture of the crust will be more cakelike, but it still works.