Monday

Now how do I get around this?

I've woken early after a fantastic night's sleep, well before the alarm  but no problems because this has been a sleepy weekend and I've done a lot of it - sleeping, I mean.
In between snoozles yesterday I managed to produce some demerara flapjacks (dead easy and very delicious) and some chutney.  I was looking for some recipes to use up the remaining apples from J and I found Nigella's recipe for Christmas Chutney, which uses apples and dried cranberries, both of which I have in abundance here.  As I also had all the other ingredients in the cupboards I set to and ended up with five pots.  More Christmas pressies, you see!  OK, so the apples I used were not the Granny Smiths of the recipe, but 's fine.  At some point soon I need to make a list of the preserves I have and how many of each, or I'm going to get in a merry festive muddle in a few months!

OK, so how about those flapjacks.  When my children were little I made this recipe a lot and ex/late also rather liked them.  I haven't, however, made any for a couple of decades but when I pulled the book down from the shelf, I remembered the page the recipe was on (318) and which of the several on the page was the one I used to make.  I wish my shorter term memory was as good as that!
You melt 1tbs of golden syrup with 5ox butter and 3oz demerara sugar until all the sugar has dissolved.  Pour the resulting goo into 8oz rolled oats with a squirt of lemon juice and a pinch of salt and mix well until all the oats are covered with the goo.
I used a rectangular baking tray, although the recipe says a round cake tin.  It would need oiling well but I use a little trick I picked up from one of Jamie Oliver's food programmes.  Scrunch some kitchen parchment under a running tap, then shake it out and spread it over the bottom and up the sides of the tin.  Works a treat!  Spoon in the flapjack mixture and spread it well with a palate knife.  Pop into an oven heated to 190C (a little less if it's a fan oven) and cook for about 35-40 mins.  Take out, cut into squares/slices and then leave to cool in the tin.  Once cool, the paper lining makes easy work of lifting the whole thing out which then breaks easily into pieces.
This recipe makes crunchy flapjacks unlike the plum flapjacks I made last week which produced gooey, chewy flapjacks.  Both are really delicious!