Easy cherry flapjack

Here's an easy peasy version of cherry flapjack, using the bare essential ingredients you should have hanging around in the cupboard!

Loosely based on the recipe my mother uses for flapjack, only with my messing about involved!

Perfect for when you get the craving but can't be bothered to shop!

• 100g butter/marge

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• 1 tablespoon honey 

• 2 tablespoons golden syrup 

• 4 tablespoons cherry jam

• 200g oats

• handful choc chips (optional)

Pre heat oven (fan) to 160c

Melt butter, sugar, honey and syrup in a pan over low heat, then add jam, melt until jam is evenly mixed in and there's no blobs of jam left. Then remove from heat and mix oats in thoroughly. 

Spoon into a baking tin lined with grease proof paper, press down well with back of spoon. 

Bake for around 15min in oven (till lightly golden on the top)

Remove from oven and sprinkle a layer of chocolate chips over hot flapjack, leave to melt for a few minutes, then spread out evenly over the top. 

Them leave to cool completely, it's hard I know, it smells sooooo good, but if you try and cut it too early it will fall apart!

I've not yet tried it with other flavours of jam, but I'm sure it would be lovely with something such as apricot jam etc?

Enjoy! :-)

Chickpeas! The healthy equivalent to peanuts.

Mmmmm tasty yummy salted peanuts, or even better dry roasted peanuts! Can't beat them, but when your on a diet they are simply to unhealthy, rather than missing out why not try chickpeas as a heathy alternative!
Chickpeas? I hear you say, well don't knock them till you've tried them! This super duper quick and easy way to cook them will soon become your favourite nibble when watching that waistline.

The beauty of this recipe is that it's got so many variations depending on how adventurous your feeling or what your craving at the time. My favourite is BBQ, literally the sky's the limit with this one really. I quite often make two flavours at a time and mix them together when cooked for a bit of variation.

Roast chickpeas.

• 1 tin of chickpeas (drained)
• 1 tsp of light olive oil
• 2 tbsp of spice/seasoning powder of your choice, such as tandoori powder, curry powder, BBQ rub, garlic powder...
• sprinkle of sea salt

Pre heat your oven to 200c (fan oven)
In a bowl add all ingredients together and stir gently till all the chickpeas are evenly covered.
If doing two different flavours simply put half the peas, oil and powder in separate bowls to mix apart.
When everything's coated spread ONE even layer over a baking tray and cook for around 20min, till browned lightly and crispy.
Remove from the oven and grind a couple of grinds of salt over them. Leave to cool and scoop into a airtight tub.

Enjoy!!!
Perfect to put into lunches to.

Our local meat market sell what they describe as meat 'glazes' like a dry rub that you use on chicken etc, these are absolutely amazing to use, they leave the chickpeas slightly sticky and very yummy, the only thing you need to be careful of is they take less cooking, more like 15min, as the glaze burns easily.

Pictured is a two flavor batch, half tandoori and half smokey BBQ meat glaze.
Mine were slightly over done as the dog decide she wanted a wee in the last five min of cooking! Still very yummy tho!

Super healthy spinach.

So I'm on a bit of a diet kick at the moment, got to get a stone gone for summer!
This leaves me trying to think of new and interesting ways to make healthy food also scrummy food too.
I have had this bag of spinach in the fridge now for a week, it's got to be eaten because I'm not throwing it away lol!
So what to do with it? I'm thinking a nice Saturday afternoon lunch, nothing fancy or time consuming, something quick and simple, but more importantly low calorie.

Garlic and spinach stir fry. (For one)

• 1 bag of baby spinach leaves
• 1 Clove of garlic
• sprinkle of chilli flakes
• splash of light olive oil

Chop the garlic, as fine or course as you like it, I like my chunks quite big but go with your taste. Put into wok with a small splash of olive oil and the chilli flakes, again adding to taste depending how hot you like it, stir fry till garlic just starts changing colour. At this point add your leaves (mine were pre-washed, if you need to wash first make sure they are super dry) toss them around until well mixed and the oils coated it all, turn heat down to medium and loosely cover with the biggest saucepan lid you own, it doesn't matter if its not all covered. Leave to cook away for about a minute then uncover and stir it all up again, then re-cover, cook for another 1-2 minutes until all the leaves have started to shrivel up and go darker. Turn off heat, uncover and give a quick stir, then leave in the hot pan to sit for a moment or two.
Eat while still nice and hot!
All done in less than five minutes!

Makes a nice bowl full for one person, a tasty lunch for less than 75 calories! Always a winner in my book! If your not having to be so strict with your calorific content then a generous shaving of Parmesan over the top would be delicious! Or a splash of soy sauce while cooking too would make a tasty addition.

(Oh and erm yeah, you might have some brilliant garlic breath afterwards, sorry)

Simple egg noodles

These are perfect for using up egg yolks you might have left over, if you have made the French macarons you'll have the perfect amount!
I came across this recipe on an American website, I can't remember which, if I find it I will pop a link on.
Obviously it wouldn't be me if I didn't put my own addition in there somewhere!

I've found these make enough for two batches, which can be frozen for around a month no problem.
Also cutting them up can be tedious work, a useful tip is use scissors, or better still if you have one a mint roller, you know one of those things that's like a row of little discs for slicing up mint, I'll include a pic.

This is the recipe I followed:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 250g plain flour
• 1tsp salt
• 4 tbsp cold water
• stock cube of your choice
• parsley or similar herb

In a large bowl mix together the salt and flour. In a separate bowl or jug beat together the eggs and water.
Make a little dent in the middle of the flour and tip egg water mixture into it, mix together until it forms a dough, you might need a splash more water, once a dough has formed turn out onto a lightly floured surface and need gently till smooth and even, it doesn't take much.
At this point if your cooking straight away with them, you'll need to put a pan of water onto boil, put a stock cube and a good sprinkle of herbs in the pan too.
Take the dough and break into two pieces, one piece is usually enough for two people.
Roll out until the thickness you want your noodles to be is reached, go slightly thinner as they poof up a bit while cooking. Then cut into strips, depending how thick you want your noodles, anywhere between 1/2in to razor fine.
Then drop your raw noodles into the boiling water, cook until tender, usually about 10min. If your freezing the second portion I recommend you cut them up ready before freezing uncooked.
Once cooked, drain and then they can be eaten as they are, used in a stir fry, put into a ham and cheese sauce, anything you would usually use noodles or pasta for really. As they are plain they can sometimes seem a bit bland, a good dollop of sauce and some bits of left over chicken soon spruce it up.

French macarons.

These tasty little beasts have been bothering me for a while now. They are totally delicious, but reading up on them seem super hard to make.
So I decided to just suck it up and give them a bash, and it's really not that hard.
There seems to be several recipes and techniques out there, I've followed (ish) the one that seems to be repeated over and over in various locations, me being me tho, there's some minimal changes.

Strawberry and whipped cream macarons:

• 3 egg whites
• 125g ground almonds
• 175g icing sugar
• 75g granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp strawberry flavouring
• 2 tsp red liquid food colouring

• whipped cream
• 1-2 tbsp sugar

First off, an what I've found to be really useful is get a piping bag. A disposable one is fine.
So, to start with you need to separate the egg whites, do this straight from the fridge as they split easier. Week old eggs are ideal for this. Put the whites in a bowl and cover with cling film, make sure the cling film is touching the surface. Then leave for a couple of hours to get to room temperature, perfect amount of time to use up the left over yolks while you wait, I made egg noodles (see my next recipe)
When your whites are at room temperature, pop the icing sugar and ground almonds into a food processor, or if you don't have one, sieve them into a bowl and mix well.
In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites with the salt until at the foamy/soft peak stage, then add the granulated sugar, continue whisking until the sugar is blended, then add the strawberry and the colouring, it will be really really pink but don't worry it fades as it cooks. Then whisk to the stiff peak stage, I always struggle with knowing when this is, a tip I was given was keep going until nothing moves when you wobble the bowl, it usually takes ten minutes of whisking on high to get there.
Once the whites are whisked use a spatula to FOLD in the dry ingredients, keep folding it in while turning the bowl until really well combined, it should look smooth and silky, if you lift the spatula out it should flow back into itself and sit back smooth. Some people say you should do 50 folds to get there.
Next you need to grab a couple of baking sheets and line them with grease proof paper, if my paper is feeling curly I sometimes use a dab of mixture to glue the corners down.
Spoon your mix into a piping bag, make sure you tie a good knot in the end or it will end up oozing out the wrong way and all over your hands!
Now piping it seems is perhaps harder than you'll think it will be, I suggest if you have never done it before that you YouTube it, seriously. The few bits of advise I can offer is, hold the bag vertically, squeeze gently from the knot end and when you lift off release the grip and give your wrist a little twist.
Pipe into little one inch discs, leave a gap for expanding. Once you've filled your sheets with beautiful little pink blobs give each sheet a sharp bang on the work top, I tend to do two or three for good measure! You should notice the tops are doming over and smoothing out.
Now leave them out on the side for 20-30min to form a skin. At this point you need to switch the oven on to pre-heat while they set. My fan oven gets set to 140c.
After half hour of setting pop them into the oven. Check them after five min, rotate the sheet if necessary, then cook for a further five min, after five take them out and check them, if you can tap the top and it's hard they should be done.
Leave to cool for ten min, then gently lift the paper off the sheet and place on the cold work top, then leave to cool for an hour or so.
Once cool they should peel easily off the paper. At this point I try to set them in pairs of equal size and shape, ready for filling. Once all paired and off the paper, and perhaps you know you might have tried one or two ;-) its time to fill. You can use a multitude of fillings, I like whipped cream, jam, buttercream, nuttella, anything that tickles your fancy really.
When you've filled them all, pop them into a lunchbox and stick them in the fridge. They are supposed to be at there best after 24hrs, but to be honest, ours never stick around long enough to find out!

If you've been considering making them, just go for it! They really ain't that hard!

Banana and white chocolate brownies

White chocolate brownies are no where near as common as they should be! They are soooo nice, quite sweet but lovely non the less. When making these recently I also had a banana that was fairly brown, which had been bothering me, I hate having a browning banana lying around looking sorry for itself, so I decided to make banana and white chocolate brownies, lets see what that turns out like...

This is the recipe I used:

• 100g butter or margarine
• 100g white chocolate chips
• 1 egg
• 1 mashed overripe banana
• 150g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g self raising flour

I heated the electric fan oven to 160c and greased a small to medium baking tin.
In a medium saucepan melt the butter completely, once melted remove from hob and immediately add choc chips, stir until melted, leave this to one side to cool.
In the meantime in a mixing bowl, beat an egg, then stir in the mashed banana, vanilla and sugar.
Once butter mixture has cooled for 5-10min stir into the banana mixture, mix well. To this mixture add the flour and mix until all the flour is mixed in. Spread out evenly in the baking tray and cook for about 15-20min until 98% cooked then turn off oven and leave in hot oven for a further 10min to finish off. It should be light golden brown on top.
It won't rise very much, don't worry they are not meant to!
Leave to cool completely before cutting. I would imagine these wound be quite nice with some sort of frosting, I've not tried it so can't say either way really.
They are not gooey and chewy like some brownies, they are more cakey and fluffy, maybe because I used self raising flour? I will try plain next time and report back!

The crazies certainly liked the smell of them that's for sure! And Mr picky likes them so they must be ok.

My favourite soup ever.

Nothing beats a thick tasty soup on a cold winter Sunday, this recipe was given to me by my mom and its easily my favourite soup ever, even better than Heinz tomato!! Not only that but it's really simple and quick to make! It's healthy too, so eating the lot won't ruin your waistline!

Butternut squash and red pepper soup:

• 2 medium butternut squashes
• 1 red pepper
• 1 medium onion
• 2 vegetable stock cubes (we always use knorr)
• salt and pepper to taste
• blob of vitalite

Using a sharp knife, chop and de-seed the pepper and butternut squash, chop into cubes and add to a large pan, chop onion and add to pan, cover veg with cold water until its just covered.
Add a fair amount of salt and pepper (to taste really) then crumble in the two sock cubes.
Put lid on and bring up to the boil, once boiling remove the lid and boil until veg is soft (around 20min)
Once cooked let cool slightly, then add a dollop of butter/marg and blend until smooth with a hand blender.

Serve with some warm crusty bread and there you have it! There's many ways you can add to this depending on your mood, a little paprika and chilli flakes for a spicy version. I sometimes add garlic and mixed herbs too.
Although I will always prefer the original...

The pooches approve too!