Lead us (not) into temptation

Oh the irony... A decade ago, I remember being so desperate for chocolate that I left my baby (asleep) in his cot while I rushed out to the corner shop for a bar of Fruit and Nut, feeling almost sick with guilt. Now I am home alone for 10 days but can't be bothered to leave the house. So this time the solution is to make chocolate covered flapjacks. They're very quick and easy to get in the oven, but there is a tantalising 2-stage cooling process.

Practically a health food

Chocolate covered flapjacks

125g butter

125g brown sugar

75g golden syrup

250g oats
100g chocolate

Pre-heat oven to 180/gas 4. Melt the butter, sugar and syrup together, then stir in the oats and mix well. Transfer to a 20 x 20cm greased and lined* tin or dish and cook for 25-30 minutes until golden brown (if in doubt, err on the side of under-cooking). Allow to cool in the dish, then turn out and spread with melted chocolate. Cut into squares or bars when the chocolate has set.

*If you can't be bothered with this, just spread the chocolate over them while they're still in the tin, then chisel them out as needed. And if you can't be bothered to spread the melted chocolate, put it in a freezer bag, snip off the corner and drizzle it over the flapjacks.

Date night

I bought a couple of packets of luscious Medjool dates to get me through my self-imposed sugar ban over Christmas - but the Quality Street got the better of me and the dates got left on the shelf. So I made them into these toothsome crumble bars:

Dates, butter, sugar, oats, flour

Date Crumble Bars

175g plain flour
175g oats
175g butter
50g brown sugar

Filling:
175g dates, stoned and chopped
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon clear honey

Heat the oven to 190/gas 5. Put the ingredients for the filling in a pan and simmer gently until the dates are soft. Whizz the flour with the butter and about half the oats until it reaches the fine breadcrumbs stage. Stir in the sugar and remaining oats (for textural reasons). Put half this mixture into an 18cm square tin and pat it down. Spread the filling over it, then top with the rest of the flour mixture. Spread it into an even layer and pat it down. Bake for 35-40 minutes, then cut up while cooling in the pan and remove when cold - or you will be left with more crumble than bar.

More leftovers

Leftovers... Seems like I'm always using that word in my blogging. I am happy to waste money on all kinds of fripperies, but like to run a very tight ship (or fridge) in the kitchen. Today was rather a challenge, as I had half a pack of beef mince and a fillet of haddock to work with. A packet or jar of carefully blended seasoning or sauce can disguise a lot, but nothing can marry together a fish and a cow. On another shelf was the remains of yesterday's lunch, a chicken, leek and mushroom crumble, bought from the local farm shop. I balked inwardly at the price when I purchased it (£20), but it has now yielded 10 portions so really not bad at all.

The downside (or upside) was that we had savoury crumble followed by apple and blackberry crumble.   I have already given you the recipe, but to save you scrolling back, here it is again. It contains cholesterol-busting oats (as well as quite a lot of butter to redress the balance).

Blackberry and Apple Crumble

Blackberry and apple crumble

Whizz together 5oz butter and 6oz plain flour until they look like breadcrumbs, add 3oz sugar and 4oz oats and blitz for a few seconds until everything is combined. Spoon over the top of fruit and bake at 190 degrees/gas 5 until golden brown. This makes enough to serve six, but I usually eke it out for two crumbles. Put what you don't use first time into a container and keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Praise indeed

Extra children to feed today, so I made a big pizza. Our 8 year old guest told me it tasted like it had come from a shop - the highest form of praise!

Big pizza

I used my bread machine to make the base this morning and left the dough sitting in the mixer all day to prove. I made a sauce for the pizza by chopping 4 large tomatoes, putting them in a pan on a medium-high heat with a good slosh of olive oil, three crushed cloves of garlic, a squeeze of tomato puree and a teaspoon of honey. Cook for about 15 minutes until everything is mushy and sweet and garlicky. I whizzed it up in a blender for a minute and then spread it over the pizza base, topping with sliced mozzarella, ripped up pieces of ham and some bits of tinned pineapple chopped quite small.  Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and bake in a hot oven for about 15 minutes. This served one hungry 12 year old, two 8 year olds, a toddler and a bit left over for the waitress.

Amber nectar - golden syrup

Last week I promised to share my recipe for perfect flapjacks. Not too gooey, not too earthy... try them and let me know what you think.

Perfect flapjacks

4oz butter
4oz sugar
3oz golden syrup (I love the classic tin, but it's much easier to use the plastic squeezy bottle)
8oz rolled oats

Heat oven to 180/gas 4. Melt together the butter, sugar and golden syrup. Remove from heat, add the oats and mix. Turn into a greased 8" square tin, pat down gently and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Cut into squares soon after removing from oven but do not remove from the tin until cold. Better slightly under-cooked than over-cooked.