Apple and Oat Bars

Stay calm and eat Apple and Oat Bars...

Last night, The Boy declared – out of the blue – that I should do a muesli (granola) bar recipe. Because school goes back next week or something and this could be useful to people.

I think he just wanted muesli bars.

I also think he could have told me before I did the fortnight’s shopping and could stock up on the expensive stuff that goes into these snacks.

So, I compromised. I’m good at that.

I made these little Apple and Oat Bars from stuff I already had and which – most likely – you already have too. Because that is how we roll in the Budget Bounty kitchen.

Simple AND good-for-you-ish.

The recipe for these came from one of the first cookbooks I ever bought for my now massive collection. It’s called Good Cooking by the people at Good Housekeeping and was published way back in 1988. Which is why I have changed one of the ingredients from margarine to butter…

It’s a recipe that literally takes only minutes to put together and which you could quite easily do with smaller versions of yourself HELPING. Ahem.

You will need some butter, some honey, some brown sugar, some rolled oats and an apple or two. Also a bowl, a baking tin and a microwave proof jug and spatula. Sound complicated?

After setting your oven to 190°C get out a set of scales and your microwave proof jug. Into your jug measure your butter, brown sugar and honey, like so:

Melt these things together.

Heat them for 1 minute at a time at 80% power until the butter is melted. You can do this in a saucepan on the stove, if you wish.

While it is melting, measure the oats into a medium sized mixing bowl and line a baking tin with parchment. The original recipe called for an 18 cm/7 inch square cake tin.

Pour your now liquid ingredients into the oats and mix well.

Add the wet to the dry. Stir.

Press half this mixture into the base of your tin. Do NOT do what I did and use a silicon tray. You want the oats to crisp up and they just get soggy if you follow my example. Honestly.

Press half your oats into something that isn’t silicon and is preferably metal…

Now get a large cooking apple (around 250 g worth), peel it and slice it thinly. Arrange the apple slices in overlapping rows to cover the oat base.

Cover your base with overlapping slices of apple.

Sprinkle your slices with cinnamon. I was cooking for an adult who likes it, so I also used ground ginger on mine.

Sprinkle with your choice of spice.

Top with the rest of the oats, press down firmly and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until golden brown and crisp.

Cut it into portions while still hot and in the pan. Leave in the tin to cool. You want your butter and honey to set before you try to move anything, or it will all fall apart.

Elevenses, Anyone?

Store in an airtight container somewhere cool. Wrap in cling film and send as part of a school lunch, serve as an after school snack or use to accompany a much deserved cuppa.

Easy. Affordable. Tasty.

Apple and Oat Bars

Servings: 12 -15
Time: 50 mins total
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

100 g/4 oz butter

60 g/2½ oz brown sugar

2 tbsp honey

225 g/8 oz rolled oats

1 large cooking apple (250 g/9 oz) peeled, cored and thinly sliced

ground cinnamon.

Method

Heat oven to 190°C/ 375°F.

Lightly grease or line an 18 cm/ 7 inch square shallow baking tin.

In a microwave proof jug or bowl, combine the first three ingredients and heat at 80% power for 1 minute intervals until melted. Stir together. This may be done in a small saucepan on the stove top if wished.

Measure the oats into a medium-sized bowl. Pour liquid ingredients over the oats and mix well.

Divide the mixture in two and press half into the base of your prepared tin.

Arrange the sliced apple over the top of the oats in overlapping rows.

Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Top with the remaining oats and press down gently.

Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown and crisp.

Cut into slices while still hot and then leave in the tin until cool.

Variations:

For a gluten-free version, substitute a gluten free muesli or granola mix for the rolled oats.
Try using different spices for variety. A Pumpkin Pie spice mix might be just the thing for you.
Sprinkle a handful of sultanas over with the cinnamon.
Add a scattering of choc chips over the apple for a special treat.

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July 7, 2015

Sharon

Our refilled biscuit barrel.

Okay, so my driving assessment didn’t happen today, because reasons. I have to go back tomorrow.

I came home and worked off the cumulative fury in my front garden, pruning pretty much 7/8 of the rose bushes off. It worked.

The bushes look like they’ll face the next growing season much better too!

Anyway, when I came in I remembered that a request had been made for some more cookies, preferably ones with chunks of chocolate and a touch of salt. So I thought I’d try a new recipe and made this one here. Coconut chocolate chunk cookies with sea salt.

Coconut chocolate chunk biscuits.

The Boy says they are good. I haven’t tasted them yet. If I agree with him, then they may end up on a post sometime.

Pasta and other things mixed in a baking dish.

I decided to do a pasta bake for dinner. So I threw a few handfuls of pasta on to cook, diced up a zucchini and a capsicum, drained a can of chickpeas and cut up some of that BBQ chook we’ve got in the fridge. When the pasta was cooked, I mixed them all together in a pyrex baking dish with what was left in the jar of pesto we had. (Another thing for the list.)

Make a quick cheese sauce to bind.

Then I made a white sauce and mixed through a few handfuls of grated tasty cheese and some mixed Italian herbs, salt and pepper. The whole lot was placed into the oven (which had been on for the cookies) and baked at 180°C for about 40 mins.

The end result.

At that stage, I took it out and sprinkled the top with some home-made wholegrain breadcrumbs that I keep in the fridge – for added texture. It was baked a further 10 minutes after that.

Then we tucked in. I had a small serving so I could follow it up with a bit of the leftover chocolate fudge pudding. The orange flavour from the zest was even more pronounced and it was amazing!

Dinner is served.

There was enough pasta left for two or three servings. I love cooking things in that glass dish. It is one of a set of three that I bought from Kmart some time ago and which came with clip lock lids. They don’t seem to have the sets any more, but you can buy singles like this one.

Hot fudge pudding and ice cream. I’d earned it.

They’re very affordable and it means that, when the dish is cool, you can pop the lid on and put it in the fridge. No fiddling with cling wrap, no transferring to a different dish, easy to reheat in – gotta be happy with that. 🙂 They are available in square and rectangle and several different sizes and I’d recommend them, especially to those just starting out. You want stuff that is versatile and that you love using. I think perhaps I should do a post on this…

Anyway, I am now very tired from my gardening exertions and ready to crash.

TTFN

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July 6, 2015

Sharon

Tikka Masala lentils and steamed millet.

Today was much quieter in our kitchen.

We added some Hoi Sin sauce to the last of the dumpling stuffing from yesterday and opened another packet of won ton wrappers. 10 Dumplings were eaten for lunch and another 20 were added to the freezer stash.

We had a few wrappers left in the packet, so I decided to make lentils for dinner tonight and try a bit of dal in a dumpling later on.

So I made Italian Lentils – but with less Italian and more Indian. After I added the bacon to the pot at the beginning, I then added a couple of teaspoons of Tikka Masala paste from the pantry and fried it off for a few minutes before continuing on as normal.

Tikka Masala lentils.

The Boy followed his nose into the kitchen fairly soon after that. I added a small can of corn kernels, just because…

Tikka Masala lentils and steamed millet.

Then I served them up with the leftover millet from last night. It wasn’t too bad, considering the minimal effort expended!

I also decanted the first batch of Kombucha and started a new one. I’m still rather unsure about it all, so shan’t be blogging anything on it until I think I might know what I’m doing.

Tomorrow bread will be made and I’m off now to figure out which cookies will be baked. I have the first half of a damnable driving assessment tomorrow -*expletive deleted* – which is going to cost me a small fortune. I have a feeling some comfort eating may find itself in progress after some comfort baking tomorrow afternoon.

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July 5, 2015

Sharon

Grandmother Sayers's Chocolate Fudge Pudding.

Today was quite a productive one in the Budget Bounty kitchen.

Sugar scrub.

I started the day by poaching the Pork Belly for dinner tonight and then making myself some sugar body scrub to get me through the mid-winter itchy skin that’s driving me up the wall.

My fruit bowl right now.

A friend has given me masses of winter fruit, so I am now all citrused up and thought I should take advantage of it.

Some Lemon Butter was therefore made.

Lemon butter

This was followed quickly by popping the empty lemon shells into a large jar and covering them in plain old household vinegar.

Future cleaning products.

In a few weeks the lemon oils will have suffused the vinegar with their wonderful scent. The vinegar will then be diluted 50:50 with water and used to clean just about everything.

Then I finally made my pork dumplings and they turned out really well! The only down side was that I ran out of wrappers before I ran out of filling.

Home-made pork dumplings.

However, even that has a plus to it. I’m thinking the filling could use some spicing up and may add some ground cumin or coriander and possibly even some sauces to the remainder.

In the meantime, we had a tasty lunch and now have some morsels in our freezer for future feasts.

I managed to have a bit of a sit-down (lunch, donchaknow) and then got dinner underway.

Dinner tonight.

We had a lovely piece of pork belly with a sticky Asian sauce, served with steamed millet, bok choy and baked butternut pumpkin (squash). Doesn’t it look good?

While that was cooking, I mixed up my Grandmother’s Chocolate Fudge Pudding – including some zest from an orange in that fruit bowl I showed you earlier.

Grandmother Sayers’s Chocolate Fudge Pudding.

It worked wonderfully. The orange really made a difference, cutting the richness beautifully. I’ll post the recipe soon, I think. My only regret is that we didn’t have any vanilla ice-cream to serve with it (the freezer is full of things that aren’t ‘sometimes foods’ right now.)

So now I am in need of a good night’s sleep. No idea why.

I’ve noticed that the biscuit barrel is nearly empty, so some cookies or biscuits will be made in the next day or so. I quite enjoy the time beforehand, when I get to trawl through my recipe books and pins looking for something special to make. One batch usually lasts The Boy a fortnight (two weeks), so I don’t bake all that often and it’s my chance to make him something special. Because I’m a softy.

Goodnight All.

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July 4, 2015

Sharon

There is a plague upon this household. I fear the Man Flu will kill us all. Including the cats.

However, we shall die well fed.

Last night The Boy took it upon himself to purchase the household a BBQ chook (American translation: Rotisserie Chicken) from the supermarket as I lay coughing upon my sick bed.

We made a quick pasta dish with it and some of the frozen vegies with which our freezer is well-stocked.

30 seconds in the sandwich press later…

This evening, I made myself some chicken quesadillas and he finished the last of the mini chilli con carne cornbread cobbler thingies in the fridge.

Chilli and Cornbread pies

Hopefully, tomorrow the worst of this viral nastiness will have passed and I will feel up to cooking something new. I have plans to make the pork dumplings that I bought the gow gee wrappers for (this fortnight’s ‘fun thing’ in the shopping).

Also, given the Antarctic-like weather that is upon us, I’d like to make my grandmother’s self-saucing chocolate pudding. The last time I tried it was incredibly rich and I thought it might be better with some orange zest added to it.

I have an orange. And a zester.

But right now I need some Vicks VapoRub and a tight pair of socks.

Hasta mañana.

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Lentil and Barley Hot Pot (slow cooker)

Lentil and Barley Casserole

This is a wonderful little dish that I came up with during my Texan sojourn, all those years ago.

For those who have just tuned in – I spent six months living in Texas and, during that time, cooked many of my meals in a little 1 quart (1.5 litre) slow cooker I bought from the Walgreens next to my hotel.

I became so attached to this little device that I wanted to bring it back to Australia with me, but voltage differences meant that wouldn’t be a practical thing to do.

So, I was quite elated to discover the same size device for sale at Target when I got back. They aren’t any more (as far as I know), but you can find them in the appliance section at Woolworths for $20.

Which is all by the by.

This is a dish that costs next to nothing to make. This was very handy when the exchange rate dropped to USD 0.45 for every AUD 1 and I was suddenly very, very poor. Ahem.

A slow cooker this size will serve three comfortably, more if you have a larger slow cooker and fill it. We worked out that the 1 litre size dish cost about $1.50 total to make.

This isn’t so much a recipe as instructions for assembly.

All you’ll need for this dish.

You’ll need these:

an onion,
a jar of crushed garlic,
a stick of celery,
some dried mushrooms,
two handfuls of whole lentils,
a handful of pearled barley,
a bay leaf,
600 ml of stock (any flavour).

The dried mushrooms are completely optional. I like to use them because they add texture and fill the kitchen with an amazing fragrance. I buy the dried shitake mushrooms from the supermarket and break them into small pieces. The mushrooms cost very little and keep for ages in an air tight container.

Break up the dried mushrooms and place a single layer on the bottom of your pot.

If you find the Asian mushrooms too strong tasting, then feel free to use any others you may find. Also, if you have family members who object to the texture of mushrooms, try grinding the dried ones in a blender, mortar and pestle, or coffee grinder and just using the resulting powder.

Follow this with a layer of diced onions and a spoonful of your jarred garlic.

Onions and garlic. You may use fresh garlic if you wish…

Then add a layer of diced carrots.

Add a chopped up carrot.

Follow with a stalk of celery.

Diced celery completes your aromatics.

Time to add your dried lentils. You can use a handful of ordinary brown or green lentils, or tiny little french Puy lentils, or these beautiful lentils from the Wimmera that I bought at a local Farmers’ Market.

Add some perfectly lovely lentils.

Now add a handful of barley. I had some black barley that I bought at the same Farmers’ market a while back, so I mixed that in with my regular pearled barley. Add a Bay leaf about now, if you have one.

Pearled and black barley.

I like to add a few chilli flakes about now, but you don’t have to.

This is the time to heat your stock if you have some already made, or to make it up if you are using a stock cube or bouillon. You can cook from cold if you are wanting the dish to take longer to cook – despite being in the slow cooker, this will only take an hour or two to be ready.

Add your stock.

It can be chicken stock (which is what I had), vegetable, beef, fish…whatever. Even plain water will do, although you may wish to add salt in that case. Make sure it covers the contents of your pot, add water if necessary.

Stir and cover. Set to low.

Looks delicious already, doesn’t it?

When the lentils are tender and the barley is cooked to your satisfaction, serve it up.

I had been given a handful of Tuscan Kale (Black Cabbage or Cavolo Nero), so I shredded that and stirred it through about 10 mins before I served it up.

Lentil and Barley Casserole.

I just put it in a bowl topped with some shaved parmesan. It’s very filling so don’t overdo the portion sizes.

Serve it up.

Things to remember: The barley will absorb the liquid and plump up like rice does. So don’t fill the pot to the brim with dry ingredients before adding your stock. Tears will result. And overflowing. And a right royal mess.

Top shaved parmesan.

The barley will also cause the mixture to thicken. Stir it a few times after an hour or so, to prevent sticking.

If you are making this for a coeliac, then use different forms of rice and perhaps millet instead of barley.

If you are making this for people who are “allergic” to being vegetarian (and we all know those people, don’t we?), then feel free to add some cubes of speck into the mix at the beginning or some shredded cooked chicken just before serving.

Bon Appetit.

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June 30, 2015

Sharon

Resuming normal transmission.

Sorry folks, last night I had a bad turn with my sugars and went into a hypo with my diabetes. It left me very much on the exhausted side – so I didn’t post.

I’ll try to make up for that a little here.

Firstly, this is the chilli we had the night before last. It was scrummy.

Chilli con Carne

Last night we had this rather tasty lentil and barley casserole, which was just the trick given the bitterly cold day.

Barley and Lentil Casserole

This takes only minutes to get on the go and ticks all sorts of nutritional boxes. We worked out that it cost about $1.50 for the entire pot, or 50 cents a serve.

Also, I remembered that I had that handful of Tuscan kale in the refrigerator, so I added it at the end for a touch of colour and a spark of flavour.

Tonight I made a Cornbread Cobbler topping and divided the leftover chilli into individual oven dishes to make Chilli and Cornbread pies.

Chilli and Cornbread pies

I overestimated the topping a bit, so we decided to split one between us. The other will either be frozen or had for lunch.

I have my book group tomorrow night, so we will be ‘shopping the fridge’ and there won’t be a diary note.

See you soon.

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28 June restocking session

Fresh stuff.

Well, I’ve been to the shops and I have food. Which is always a nice outcome for anyone, I think.

I’m rather annoyed, because I’ve just realised that I don’t have a receipt from the greengrocer’s. So I won’t be able to break it all down for you. However, the vegetables cost me $12.50.

Here they are:

Fresh stuff.

There is:

a bag of onions,
half a bunch of celery,
some bok choy,
a few Brussels sprouts (The Boy loves them),
3 zucchini,
a corn on the cob,
an eggplant,
half a cabbage,
4 small red capsicum, and
a handful of button mushrooms.

Total = $12.50

There’s also a few leaves of Cavolo Nero or Tuscan Kale, given to me by someone at the Community Garden, and a few lemons given to me by a complete stranger at the laundromat. As they do…

In Aldi, I bought:

1 x 3 litre tin Extra Virgin Olive Oil $17.99
1 pkt wholemeal tortilla wraps $1.99
2 x 500g blocks unsalted butter $5.18
500g shredded Mozzarella Cheese $4.49
700g shredded Tasty Cheese $5.49
500g frozen stir fry mix $2.19
500g streaky bacon $5.99
1kg Pork Mince $9.98
1 kg Plain Flour $0.75
1 kg SR Flour $0.75
3 x 1l UHT Full Cream Milk @$0.95 $2.85
1 kg Jasmine Rice $2.29
2 x 400g tins diced tomatoes @$0.99 $1.98
2 x 400g tins kidney beans @$0.75 $1.50
1 x 800g tin apple pie filling $2.99

Total – $66.41

Some of the groceries.

At Woolworths, I bought:

1 x pkt Gow Gee Pastry (Won Ton wrappers) $2.60
1kg Arborio rice $3.20
500g desiccated coconut $2.99
2 x 250g choc chips 2 for $5.00
1 Dozen free range eggs $6.49

Total -$20.28

Which makes a Grand Total of $99.19.

I have no idea what possessed me to buy the rice and coconut at Woolworths. I can only think it was because I was there for the eggs and remembered I needed more. ‘Mistakes were made,’ as The Boy would say.

Now don’t imagine for a minute that I expect to use all that oil in the next few weeks.

Hot chilli oil.

That will last us 6 months or more. I decided to restock as I had just finished our last tin of it by refilling our smaller bottle on the counter and making that litre of Chilli oil for my Step-father.

I had decided it was going to be a “stock up” type of shop. I don’t need more flours, but I got them anyway. They are now filling containers in the pantry, along with the chocolate chips (which I only ever buy if there is a ‘twofer’).

The multiple cartons of milk will happily sit in the pantry until I have a visitor who takes milk in their coffee, or I want to cook something that needs it.

The bacon will be divided into 2 rasher parcels and frozen that way. I use it to add a punch of flavour to anything I think might need it.

Cheese.

We buy shredded/grated cheeses as a rule. It prevents grated knuckles, saves washing up and reduces waste. Cheese in this household is considered a condiment or garnish, not a major player.

There are three containers in the refrigerator, two labelled “Pizza” and “Tasty,” and one that obviously holds parmesan cheese and doesn’t need a label. About a cup’s worth of cheese goes into each of these containers and the rest goes in the freezer until the containers are empty. This amount of cheese will last us several months. (Unless I go on a major pizza-making binge.)

The butter will last quite a long time if refrigerated correctly. I like to use butter in my baking and had none at all to hand.

The Gow Gee wrappers are because I want to try making some gyoza for snacks and to freeze for later (snacks). This is the destination of half the pork mince.

The other half of the mince will be used for some meatballs that I will also freeze for a dinner shortcut in the future – although I’m quite tempted to explore other options.

I have a piece of Pork Belly and a Marinated Beef Roast currently in the freezer – along with the rest of last shop’s frozen beef mince and chicken pieces. So, one of those will form a major meal at some stage this fortnight and appear in different guises following that.

The cans of tomatoes and kidney beans are currently being used, along with one package of the frozen beef mince, to make a crockpot full of the most delicious-smelling Chilli con Carne.

Chilli con carne to be

This is what it looked like when I walked away from it a few hours ago. The kidney beans will be added about 30 mins before serving just to heat them through.

Leftovers may form calzone fillings, quesadilla fillings, pasta sauce or I might turn it into a cobbler. Then again, they might just be frozen until inspiration strikes.

I’ll post the recipe some time later this week.

I’m thinking the next time I go shopping it will be mostly for meat to restock the freezer. There’s only so many times in a row that one can eat beef mince, quite frankly.

But for now…I’m hungry!

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Caraway and Lemon Biscotti

Grind the caraway seeds in a pestle and mortar.

These are among my personal favourite biscotti. (If you would like a primer on biscotti, then please click here: Biscotti 101)

I created these by adapting a recipe I found in a book compellingly entitled Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favourites, which I believe I bought in a Barnes and Noble store in Baltimore, Maryland, sometime in 2006.

It was originally a recipe for Anise and Lemon Biscotti, but I didn’t have any Aniseeds, and didn’t want to go buy some, so I substituted caraway seeds instead.

I also found the dough was too dry at the end of mixing it. However I’d had to zest a lemon for the recipe, so I juiced that and mixed the juice into the dough.

It was a triumph. A little piece of citrusy heaven. Trust me. If you like lemon-flavoured anything, then you’ll love these.

They are among the most requested in my Christmas Collection and now I share them with you.

They are the perfect thing to enjoy a quiet moment with a cuppa before going back to being an adult.

Start by sifting the plain flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together into a bowl.

Sift the dry ingredients together.

Then add the zest of a lemon or two. You’ll need around 2 tablespoonfuls.

Now you’ll need to grind your caraway seeds the best that you can. Use either a pestle and mortar or a small electric coffee grinder you use solely for this purpose.

Grind the caraway seeds in a pestle and mortar.

Add them to your flour mix, stir through and set aside.

Add your zest and seeds and stir together.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat together 2 whole eggs and 1 egg white.

Eggs!

Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir to achieve a smooth dough.

If you manage to do that with just the eggs, then you have my congratulations.

If not, then juice the lemons that you have zested and add the strained juice to your dough – little by little – until it all comes together.

Be careful not to make it too wet…

Line an oven tray with baking paper. Using a spatula and floured hands, scoop half the dough out of the bowl and onto one side of the baking sheet. Repeat on the other side.

Shape as best you can into logs. Remember that they will spread as they bake, so try to keep the inner edges at least 6 inches apart.

It’s a messy job, but someone has to do it.

Bake at 180°C/350°F for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top of each log is firm.

(This is the perfect time to wash your mixing bowl and other utensils.)

Remove to a wire rack until cool enough to handle – around 15 mins. Reduce your oven to 150°C/325°F.

The lovely lemon tinge from the juice sets these biscotti apart.

Now is the time to cut them into 1.5 cm/½ inch thick slices with a serrated knife.

Then, place them back onto the baking sheet, cut side down.

Traditionally biscotti are cut on the diagonal.

Bake for a further 15 minutes. Remove to cool on racks.

They will firm up on standing, so don’t be concerned if they still seem soft in the middle.

Ah. Bliss.

Caraway and Lemon Biscotti

Servings: approx 36 biscotti
Time: 10 mins
Difficulty: easy
Print

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 cup sugar

2 whole eggs

1 egg white

1 tbsp caraway seeds, ground

1 tbsp freshly grated lemon peel (zest)

Strained juice of lemon (reserved)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 350°F. Line a baking sheet with paper and set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.

Add the lemon zest and ground caraway seeds.

In a small bowl, lightly beat together the whole eggs and egg white.

Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir to form a smooth dough. Add lemon juice as required to achieve the correct consistency.

Using floured hands and a spatula, scoop half the dough into a log shape on one side of the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough on the other side – spacing the logs at least 6 inches apart.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the top of each log is firm.

Remove with a long spatula to a wire rack and cool for 10 to 15 mins.

Reduce the heat of the oven to 150°C/325°F.

Using a serrated knife, cut each log on the diagonal into ½ inch slices.

Place slices back onto the lined baking trays, cut side down and bake for a further 15 minutes.

Remove and cool on racks.

These biscotti will continue to harden as they cool.

Will keep for several weeks, stored in an airtight container.

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June 26, 2015

Sharon

Fruit of the Forest Muffins.

Hello, my lovelies.

I’m having a few issues with my eyes at the moment, so this shall be short and sweet.

Today I learned we were to have a visitor at some time during a 4 hour window, so I made muffins for when they finally arrived. I’d discovered a few bags of tiny (ridiculously small) amounts of frozen berries when I was doing my freezer stock take the other day. A quarter cup of raspberries in a bag, for example. So, I mixed them all together and dubbed them Fruits of the Forest.

Waste not, want not.

Then I added a scant handful of dark choc chips and turned them into muffins. It used the last of the buttermilk I’d bought for The Boy’s work muffins the other day.

Fruit of the Forest Muffins.

It took about 10 mins and a few of my pantry staples to have something yummy for my guest. Win.

I didn’t know when they would be leaving, so I rescued a bag of my Asian Flavoured Beef from the freezer too and popped it in the smallest crockpot. That’s ready now and I’ll be serving it with the leftover rice from last night’s curry adventure. Another win.

I hope to do my green grocer shopping tomorrow, and will probably be listing this fortnight’s haul on the post after next. All while wondering if everyone wants me to keep doing this?

Please let me know!

Happy eating.

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