Guilt Free Oaties

Two things I really miss being able to eat since cutting dairy out of my diet are cookies and banana bread.

After prowling the internet and pinterest, I found many a recipe involving bananas and oats, so I set to work on baking some oaty, banana bready, cookie deliciousness.

This/my recipe works on a three cookies to one banana basis, with about a cup of oats to a banana. Confused?

Anyway, to make 12 decent cookies you will need: 

4 mashable bananas

3 cups oats (both rolled and quick work well!)

1 tsp cinnamon

Several handfuls of sultanas

First mash those bananas like crazy, I used a potato masher!

And a certain someone found this rather exciting to watch...

Add your oats, stir well and you'll be left with something that looks like this:

Hang in there and percivere, it'll look & taste better soon,
Add your cinnamon and fruit,

Aim for about a tablespoon and a half of mixture to each cookie when putting them on the baking tray, and don't worry, these ones don't spread!

Leave them in there for about 15-19 mins at about 180 celcius and you should have something like this.....

No added sugar, no butter or milk, and if you use gluten free oats, no gluten! Whoopee!

They're best eaten on the day, I ate the first batch I made in an hour.. For breakfast... But they're just so moreish and scrummy and healthy that I'm not sure I care!

Update: And good news, if you pop them on a plate and put them in the microwave for 4 mins, take out and flip then pop in for another 30 secs, they'll be done!
Microwavable cookies!!!

Chocolate Fudge Cake Take 2

One of the first recipes I ever posted was this chocolate fudge cake, it's deliciously dense and fudgy and I've made it many a time for girls at school and for Josh.

Today is Josh's dad's birthday and after asking what I could do to help with the party, I was given the task of baking the birthday cake.. No pressure.

I waited for what seemed like forever for it to cook. I put it in for 20 mins at 180 celcius, then back in for about another 50 with foil over the top to keep the top nice.

I got a tub of Philadelphia, mixed it with some butter and icing sugar and slathered it on the cake.

Then came to decorating.
I haven't met anyone who doesn't like Mars, so seeing as Josh's cake last year went down so well when I piled it high with Skittles and M&Ms, I thought I'd pile these on.

Mum was kindly given some pots of edible gold by one of her clients at work, which she kindly gave to me.

I used the moisture from the chocolate to stick the gold leaf onto the planets to make it look more jazzy and special.

I'm not meaning to blow my own trumpet, but this is the best chocolate cake I've had, plus the lack of butter in the ingredients means I can swap the milk for coconut or almond milk!

Original recipe with full ingredients and directions here.

Slimmed Down Lasagne

Recently I had a serious hankering for some lasagne, the only problem being that dairy features pretty heavily normally and seeing as its off the cards for me (and Ibbs, I'm looking at you too!), I was a little stuck.
The night before I was thinking like I normally do, about food and what I'll have for breakfast, and I formulated a recipe to a) use up veggies in the fridge and b) make a healthy lasagne and Bob's your Uncle, this was born!

Lots and lots of filling layers of yumminess with even look-a-like cheese on top, for half the calories, you can thank me later!

Serves 4
1 medium red onion
3 to 4 cloves of garlic (use less if you don't like it)
1 large aubergine (eggplant)
1 1/2 courgette (zucchini)
1 sweet pepper
2  medium mushrooms (I used large cup mushrooms)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
3 basil leaves
Spinach or red chard
Lasagne pasta
Bread crumbs (optional)

First chop everything into smaller pieces, making sure the onion and garlic are the most finely chopped.
Pop the onion and garlic into a large sauce pan with a tiny bit of olive oil and brown them

Then add the mushrooms and sweet pepper, aubergine and courgettes..
Then the tinned tomatoes, stir it well, tear in the basil and leave it to simmer.

While that was bubbling away I went up to the vegetable patch to find my leaves.

There were so many to choose from, and it reminded me of "The Flopsy Bunnies", but I grabbed about 10 large leaves of chard, and when I came back the ratatouille-like sauce was ready to go.

Now comes the assembly,
Dollop a small amount of the sauce at the bottom of your container, then add your pasta, then the spinach, keep repeating until you get to the top where you sprinkle on your breadcrumbs.

It's also really colourful!

Cover the container with foil and put in a 180 celcius oven for 25 mins, then take the foil off and pop it back in for another 10 mins.

Now, I got my math on and did some sums, a quarter of this lasagne (that's a hungry portion) only has 244 calories in, whereas a normal portion has calories into the five hundreds, but the majority of the calories in my lasagne are from the pasta, which is why it's slimmed down, not skinny, but I'm toying with the idea of using thinly slices courgette instead of pasta.

Plus it's super scrummy hot or cold, which is good for left overs!!!

Cornflake Tart

I work in a local farm shop and working every week has given me some regulars and favourite customers.

Two of these favourite customers just happen to be a pair of friends called Mrs Daniels and Mrs Howard and I think they're fantastic.

Long story short, Mrs Daniels told me that Mrs Howard was renowned for her jam making skills and Mrs Howard was kind enough to bring me some jam in to try, I don't think she knew that she had given me my two favourite flavours, Raspberry and Blackcurrant!

 I had been invited to a meal with lots of friends and the host had asked us to bring something each, I was given "Sweet", which is good, I can do sweet.
I decided to do a cornflake tart, firstly to try out this amazing jam and secondly because it's such an underrated pudding, I know it's quite wintery, especially served warm with custard, but I like it just as much cold and there's something very comforting about it. It's essentially a hug in a pudding.

You'll need:
9oz plain flour
4.5oz butter
About 6 tsp water (you may need less, or more)

1 jar of your favourite jam, Raspberry works best
125g cornflakes
9 dessert spoonfuls of golden syrup
75g butter
35g dark brown sugar
A pinch of salt

First I made my shortcrust pastry, and popped it into a cake tin (I don't have a tart case), lightly pricked it with a skewer and blind baked it in the oven at about 180 celcius for about 20 mins.

When it's out, grab your jam and smother the base of it. (I might have eaten a few spoonfuls, it was that good. Best jam I've ever had.)

Pop a large saucepan on the heat, and pour in your golden syrup, butter and sugar and melt them down.

 Fold in your cornflakes, try to coat them all in the sugary mixture, but not crush them at the same time!

 Spoon the cornflake mix into the pastry case, pressing it down into the jam evenly.

Put this back in the oven for about 5-10 mins so it goes slightly more golden and delicious.

Wait for it to cool and voila! A rather rustic looking cornflake tart, made with the world's best jam!

Thank you Mrs Howard!

Skinny Chocolate Fudge Brownies

A few nights ago I was trawling through Bloglovin' and found a recipe for dairy free brownies. Without thinking, I took a photo of the ingredients on my phone, but didn't note down who's it was, I've changed this slightly to fit what I had in my pantry but if the base of this recipe is yours, then thank you, because it's so scrummy and dairy free!

It makes the most delicious, fudgey brownies. Don't let the photos make you think that they're cakey, no siree, they're ooey and gooey and sans butter!

1 medium avocado

1 large egg

1.5 breakfast cup of granulated sugar (I'm going to try it with sweetener soon)

3/4 breakfast cup of cocoa powder

1/4 breakfast up of plain flour

First mash that avocado up as smooth as can be:

 

Add an egg..

Stirin your sugar and your cocoa powder.
I found it was easiest to add a little at a time or the powder went everywhere.

Lastly fold in your flour.

Look at that ooey, gooey mixure...

Do a finger taste test, no ones watching or judging..

Pour into a foil lined brownie tin.

And for the sake of the brownies, please grease that foil, or you'll be stuck (or rather your brownies will be).

I used a standard brownie tin (20 cm sq) but that was a little too large, my brownies came out quite thin (I don't really trust thin brownies) so I doubled them up and stacked 2 together to make a decent size.

Pop them in the oven at 180 celcius for about 15 mins, depending on how thick the batter is in the tin. 

The avocado is a much better replacement for butter, not only cutting out dairy, but they're full of good fats to make your nails grow and your hair shiny, plus they're rumoured to help you lose weight.

Brownies that make you lose weight and make your hair shine?
Yes please.

  

 Just one more...