Fruity Flapjacks, and some end-of-half-term ramblings

Big blogging ideas, coming to naught due to half-term and my inability to prioritise what I want to do, as opposed to what I ought to do!
Where do people find the time to blog anyway? I know, make time, stop wasting time & procrastinating, but, I do like my creativity to be tangiable, and blogging still feels pretty etheral and pointless to me
Anyway, this afternoon I made some flapjacks, following a request for a recipe from my eldest son (he cooks, therfore he asks how it's done, rather than demand the finished product from mum, I do love that about him :)
However, I don't follow a measured recipe for flapjacks, I tend to make them on the fly depending on what I've got lurking in the kitchen cupboards.
So, just for him, I've measured everything up, and made notes. I also took some  pics of the process for those who may read this and unlike him, can't visit my kitchen to watch it happen!

Fruity Flapjacks

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter

3 tablespoons honey

100g coconut palm sugar (or soft light brown/Demerara sugar)

150g dried fruit

75g sunflower seeds

25g pumpkin seeds

300g porridge oats

75g whole oats

Firstly, check that you have all the ingredients (weighed out and ready) & some greaseproof paper! 

Use the greaseproof paper/baking parchment to line a baking tray and put this to one side.

Put the butter, honey and sugar into a large deep pan and melt together gently, over a medium heat.

Put the butter, honey and sugar into a large deep pan and melt together gently, over a medium heat.

Stir it together with a wooden spoon, until all the sugar is dissolved and it's golden brown and bubbling. 

Remove from the heat and tip in all the "dry" ingredients, stir this together well until everything is evenly coated.

Carefully transfer the mixture into the prepared (lined!) baking tray, spread it out evenly and press it all down firmly with the back of a metal spoon.

Now simply pop it into the oven and bake for 15-20 mins, until it's an even golden colour.

Finally, and a very important point - leave it to cool for at least 45 mins to an hour before you attempt to cut it. Once cooled, it firms up and its easy to lift the whole thing out in order to cut it up into portions, try this before and you will end up with a big heap of crumbs, allbeit very tasty fruity & seedy crumbs, but still crumbs and not the flapjacks you wanted!

Sunday's Black Bean & Sweet Potato soup, & selfishness in the kitchen.

I have to admit that over the past few weeks, my diet has been terrible. Not that I am following any "diet" in particular, it's just a case of being "too lazy" to fix myself something nice and healthy after having fed the children. Yes, I'm guilty of being a mum who doesn't follow the same diet as her kids. That said, I don't think that growing children are very suitable candidates for a low carb, mostly gluten free, pretty much vegan diet, so meh!
In an effort to improve my health, I've decided to start making a point of preparing myself something good to eat everyday for the next seven days and to blog about it.

Todays treat is  Black Bean & Sweet Potato Soup.
I always look around both in my recipe book collection and online before cooking these days, and it appears that some people consider this recipe to be a detox one, so hey, there's a bonus (if you believe in the whole detox thing, I'm not 100% convinced there).

I soaked (overnight) and then cooked about 250g of dried black beans which I will use in this recipe, but I'm sure a couple of tined black beans would save time if you prefer. (2 Cups of cooked beans if you are using american measures, and 1 pint is slightly over 500ml )

Ingredients:
Cooked black beans.

3 sweet potatos, peeled and roughly diced

2/3 cloves of garlic, crushed with garlic press

1 red onion, finely chopped by hand

1 veg stock cube, dissolved in 1 pint of hot water

1 pint of water

olive oil

Ras el Hanout (spice mix) about 2 teaspoons

salt

pepper

1 lime

And some creamed coconut & a fresh red chillie, for an alternative version from the same pot!



I always start by peeling and chopping everything and tidying the peelings before getting the cooking pots out. Saves time and effort later and also prevents you from "forgetting" that you were out of a key ingredient before you commit!

First heat up a little olive oil in a large pan over a medium heat, once its warm, add the chopped onion, and then turn the heat down a bit, take your time with onions to bring out the sweetness and cook until they clarify without browning,this is sometimes called "sweating" them, but I don't call it that (cos, well, yuck frankly!).



Once they seem done (& experience tells me onions are better under-done than over at this stage in soup making!) , add the sweet potato and stir so that everything is mixed and coated in the olive oil , then add the crushed garlic and spices.

Cook together for 1-2 mins or so to take the rawness out of the garlic & spices,  and enjoy the wonderful smell that starts to fill your kitchen, but be careful that the garlic doesn't brown, or else it tastes bitter.




Now we can add the black beans and the prepared stock. Followed by another pint of plain water.  Turn the heat to medium and bring up to a simmer, then cook for 20-30 mins, or until the sweet potato is completely cooked through.

Once the potato is cooked, it then becomes a choice of how smooth, and how spicy!

In my kitchen, out comes the trusty (allbeit ancient) Braun handblender, simply pop it into the soup, and blend away, being careful to avoid any spashback. Continue until you've reached the smoothness you prefer.

As this amount is about four portions, remove all but one portion at this stage (into a bowl, cool, then cover and fridge/freezer until needed), and season what's to be eaten now with salt and pepper (personally I leave out the salt). Reheat gently if needed and serve into a bowl, squeezing  in some lime juice and finishing off with a little finely grated lime zest.
In this blog picture, I have used lime juice -from a bottle shhh!, and lemon zest, as I used the last lime yesterday.

As a change, another potion could be reheated with the addition of a teaspoon of coconut cream, and some finely chopped chili, serve with lime juice and zest as before.