Quick, easy & healthy biscuits to make with the kids! November 7, 2011

Here’s a lovely easy oat biscuit recipe I made with my girls recently.

75g spelt flour
1tsp baking powder
75g porridge oats
75g unrefined sugar (demerera)
75g butter
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp milk (I used oatmilk)
1 handful raisins (or chopped apricots, seeds or anything else yummy you have in the house)

Oven at 180 degrees C. Line a baking tray.
Mix flour, oats, baking powder and sugar in a bowl
Melt butter, syrup & milk in a saucepan and add to dry ingredients
Mix raisins in
Spoon onto baking tray and shape into rounds
Bake for 10 – 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Leave to cool for 5 minutes before taking off tray (or else they may crumble)
Enjoy!!!

Make your own milk! September 1, 2011

No not mothers milk…that happens naturally when you have a baby! The wonders of nature!

A couple of years ago we did lots of experimenting with making our own milk replacement for on cereal, etc as we no longer drink cows milk.  This is why.

It is really easy, and doesn’t take up too much time.  All you need is a liquidizer (and the ingredients, of course!). It works out much cheaper than buying it already made (and much cheaper than cows milk) and we can choose organic ingredients and know that the ‘milk’ has no funny additives or preservatives, and has no weird dioxins perhaps leaked from packaging.

Almond Milk (My FAVOURITE…especially nice fresh!)

1 cup of Almonds (soak overnight)
3 cups water
Optional: 1 tspn vanilla essence

Brown unrefined sugar/honey/dates or agave syrup to taste (we normally use about 2 teaspoons raw honey)

Whizz up in liquidizer for a couple of minutes and then pour through cheesecloth, muslin or similar. Bottle, put in fridge and use within 4 or 5 days – it’s that easy!

Almond milk is full of potassium, magnesium, Vitamin E, and has less calories than a glass of cows milk.  You can use the leftover pulp for baking too!

Rice Milk

We’ve experimented with Rice milk quite a bit and it never turns out quite like the Rice Dream that you buy (possibly because they use white rice and we prefer to use untampered with brown rice), but it’s still pretty good.

1 cup COOKED brown rice
3 cups water
Optional: 1 tspn vanilla essence
Brown unrefined sugar/honey/dates or agave syrup to taste (we normally use about 2 teaspoons raw honey)

Whizz up in liquidizer for a couple of minutes and then pour through cheesecloth, muslin or similar. Bottle, put in fridge and use within 4 or 5 days – it’s that easy!

Oat Milk
1 cup oats
4 cups water
Optional: 1 tspn vanilla essence
Brown unrefined sugar/honey/dates or agave syrup to taste

Whizz up in liquidizer for a couple of minutes, leave to stand for about 8 hours and then pour through cheesecloth, muslin or similar

The remaining bits from all these can be mixed with flour, raisins, oil, seeds, sugar and whatever else you fancy, and made into biscuits!

 

Hawthorn or Elderflower cordial recipe July 9, 2011

If you still have any elderflowers out, run and grab them and make this yummy cordial! Erin lives on the stuff!

Ingredients:

20 heads elderflower or hawthorn flowers
1.8kg sugar (I use the slightly healthier unrefined brown sugar)
1.2 litres water
2 unwaxed lemons
75g citric acid

Shake bugs off flowerheads and put flowerheads in a bowl.
Dissolve the sugar in the water by warming gently
Peel the zest off the lemons and put it into bowl with flowerheads
Slice lemons and add to flowerheads
Poor sugar water over flowerheads once it’s cooled a bit
Add citric acid
Cover with a cloth for 24 hours then strain through cheesecloth (or sieve)
Bring to the boil, then bottle and mix to taste (about1 part cordial to 6 parts water)