Baby flapjacks

I I finally had a) the baby napping solidly enough and b) the energy to try baking something new! As a household we've always had a pretty healthy diet, so we're not making major adjustments now our son in on solids, but it did make me realise that while a biscuit when you're peckish isn't so bad for an adult who should know better, it's not really desirable for a baby who doesn't know better! Our son eats enough fruit at each meal time to keep Dole in business for many years to come, so I scoured the offerings of Pinterest for something a little different he could have for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Lo and behold, the sugar free baby flapjack has been baking in our oven.

This is the original recipe, but please carry on reading to find out how I found it and what my end result was: http://www.myfussyeater.com/sugar-free-flapjacks-for-baby-led-weaning/

The ingredients are (and I used cup measurements just because they were available, though my scales were handy and they definitely didn't match the weights to cups conversion on the original recipe):

2 cups rolled oats, ground up a bit in the food processor

1 tbsp desiccated coconut

1/3 cup butter, melted (you can use coconut oil but mine is for my hair!) - also, be careful if melting it in the microwave, I hadn't done it before and have ended up with a butter-coated microwave interior to clean

3 dates, pitted

1 & 1/2 bananas

4 tbsp orange or apple juice (I had orange open)

1. Mix the processed oats and coconut together in a large bowl

2. Put the other ingredients into a blender / food processor and blitz till they're paste-like, or at least combined and not too lumpy

3. Pour the wet paste into the dry mix and thoroughly combine

4. Line a tray with parchment (I used Fry Light to grease my tray and help the parchment stick)

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tray, then pat it down tightly with a spoon to make it nice and dense

I had preheated the oven to 170 Celsius (actually 150 due to mine being fan). When I do this again I'm going to put it at at least 170 fan, if not 180, to encourage a bit more colour and less drying out. 

The original recipe says to bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden, but mine were in for much longer... Maybe 40 minutes. Hence the idea about upping the temperature next time. 

This recipe should make 8 to 16 bars depending on how greedy you are. I'm actually giving my son no more than half a 16th of the total at a time (a 32nd??!?) because I made them quite thin but they're pretty wide. You can just slice them into however many you want once they're a little cool.

I had licked the spoon as I out the tray in the oven and really enjoyed the taste. I then shared a bit with my son after they'd cooled a little, and I have to say, neither of us were disgusted at these healthy little bars! Normally with healthy versions or sugar-free things I usually think I'll just make the sugared version and eat less, but these are pretty good. My husband tried one and he won't be stealing them; they're not quite up to his sweet tooth requirements, but I think we'll happily make our way through the remaining 30 32nds! 

The original recipe says they can be frozen in parchment and defrosted with 30 mins notice, this excites me quite a lot but I've run out of parchment so they will be plastic-tubbed until I can get some more parchment tomorrow! 

Greek meatballs

A little while ago I bought loads of chicken thighs and froze them. They seemed like a good idea at the time, but really I missed chicken breast too much and they got ignored in the bottom drawer. After last week's salad extravaganza I had some halloumi left, so I decided to see if I could turn the halloumi and chicken into some sort of Greek delight. It was a success. Here's what I did:

2 chicken thighs, cut into chunks
A clove of garlic
A generous teaspoon of dried parsley
A slice of white bread
One large egg
Half a teaspoon of cumin
Half a teaspoon of cinnamon
A handful of black olives, chopped
500g passata
100g spaghetti

1. I placed the parsley, garlic and bread in the mixer and whizzed until I got breadcrumbs

2. I then added the chicken thigh chunks, as well as the egg, and blended together until the mixture was a consistent but rough texture
3. I scooped out small portions about the size of a walnut and placed them on a plate in a ball form, covered them with cling film and popped them in the fridge.

4. It was at this point I wandered off for a while. Sometimes you just need to walk away and check your Twitter feed.
5. Then I returned and got to work with a frying pan at a medium heat. I popped some olive oil in, and fried the balls in batches until they were cooked through.

6. After removing the balls from the pan, I used the same pan and added the passata, cumin, cinnamon and olives.

7. Once this was heated up, I returned the meatballs to the pan.
8. It was at this stage that I put the pasta on to cook, simmering everything for 12 minutes.
9. Just before the end of cooking, about 2 minutes from serving time, I added the chunks of halloumi to the tomato and meatball sauce. I didn't stir it - I wanted to warm it without melting it into the sauce.
10. I then drained the pasta and added half of the meatball sauce mixture. The remainder of the sauce and meatballs is sitting in a plastic box in the freezer, waiting for my to finish work late one night. Can't wait.