Flapjacks

I am currently living on flapjacks.
There is so much I cannot eat and I have trouble keeping my blood sugar level stable, so I snack on these often!

350g Gluten free oats
200g sunflower/pumpkin seeds
150g dates (I use organic dates)
150g Coconut Oil
150g Molasses syrup

Use a food processor to blitz the seeds down to a crumb, then add the dates in and blitz them down. - if you remove the seeds before blitzing the dates they will just stick together in a big ball!

Put the oats and blitzed bits in a very large bowl.

Put the molasses and coconut oil in a non stick pan and heat until all the oil has melted, then stir into your oat mixture.

Once well mixed press into your pans. I use 2 Victoria sponge pans lined with silicone sheet (I found greaseproof paper ends up sticking to the base of the flapjack).

Then cook in a preheated oven at 180c for 20minutes.

Once cooked take out of the oven and leave to cool for a few hours before trying to cut and store.

They last about a week in my house in an airtight container, but I think they would keep for 2 weeks!

The Passport To Our Summer!

The passport to our summer!

The summer holidays are nearly upon us. I like to try to be organised during the holidays. Due to my M.E. I can't plan ahead too much as I don't know from one day to the next how I'm going to be feeling, but I can at least make a long list of ideas then we can decide day by day what we might like to do!
Most of the things on this list take little or no planning, some are quite messy! I've tried to include links to recipes, or photos to give you ideas.

There are so many more ideas I would like to list, but I have run out of time for now (school breaks up tomorrow!), so here is the link to my things to do with kids pinterest board, where I store all of my ideas!
If you have never used pinterest before be aware it is highly addictive!

Indoors

1. Play board games
2. Paint
3. Read a book - create a reading chart 
4. Dance
5. Sing
6. Build a forte
7. Get the Lego out
8. Make a summer scrapbook (to show all the cool things you've done, made, collected!)
9. Take silly photos (To go in the scrapbook)
10. Have a tea party

11. Do cooking

12. Learn how to type

13. Make jewelry 

14. Make playdough - recipe (will link this once I've written it out!)

15. Put together a playdough tool kit!

16. Boredom buster jar

17. Practice sight words - make popsicle sticks

18. Scavenger hunt

19. Baloons

20. Make sun catchers 

21. Sock fish fishing

22. Go on a colour hunt and make a giant rainbow collage

23. Make gloop - add colours (2 cups cornstarch 1 cup water)

24. Make a christmas shopping list

25. Grow beans in a jar with cotton wool

26. Grow cress

27. Make wrapping paper and gift tags and cards

28. Build with blocks

29. Have a huge doodling session

30. Potato painting

31. Science experiment - coloured water, celery or chinese leaf

32. Throw beanbags into a bucket (or newspaper balls, or soft toys)

33. Do a puzzle

34. Tie dye

35. Paint nails, do tattoos

36. Build things out of boxes - post box, cooker, shop

37. Make a latches board 

38. Make get up and move dice 

39. Frozen painting with Epson salts

40. Frozen hands (gloves with beads & buttons iced)

41. Reading scavenger hunt (or picture one)

42. Print and colour snowflakes (or other frozen theme)

43. Ice castle fun with shaving foam

44. Shaving foam paint

45. Colour in castle!

Outdoors

46. Make a fairy garden

47.- collect and paint rocks

48.- build fairy house and tools

49.- buy rockery plants

50. Have a water fight

51. Blow bubbles

52. Hopscotch

53. Chalk drawings

54. Chalk paint 

55. Have a picnic

56. Jump on the trampoline - find different ways to jump

57. Fly a kite

58. Balance beam - wooden plank

59. Painting with water

60. Throw a frisbee

61. Play with a football

62. Go berry picking

63. Freeze toys in ice

Go...

64. To the beach

65. To a sandy beach

66. To the arcade

67. To the park

68. To the pound shop

69. Swimming

70. Go on a nature walk, collect interesting things then take them home to paint! (Or to add to fairy garden)

Lemon Oat Cream Bars

Ingredients

1⅓ Cups plain flour (I haven't tried these gluten free yet)
1tsp baking powder
½cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup oats
1 can condensed milk (light is fine)
½ cup lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon

8 x 11 pan
Preheat oven to 180c

Mix butter and sugar, then add the flour, baking powder and oats.

Press half the mix into your greased pan.

In a separate bowl mix the condensed milk with the lemon juice and zest.

Spread this evenly over the oat layer

Top with remaining oat mix

Bake for 20-25mins until the top is golden brown

Let cool

Refrigerate for 30mins until set, then cut into bars and store in the fridge.

Yummy!

Gingerbread Men

I found a recipe for gingerbread men a few months ago, many batches later with lots of experimenting this is what I was left with. Gluten free, dairy free gingerbread men!

Ingredients

70g Vitalite
70g coconut oil
(Or 140g butter)
100g dark muscovado sugar
3tbsp Golden syrup (or molassas syrup or rice syrup)
350g rice flour
1tsp Bicarbe of soda
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
2 balls of stem ginger chopped

Preheat oven to 180c

Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a non stick saucepan

Mix the flour, soda, spices and ginger.

Add the wet mix to the dry mix and mix well.

If the mix is too sticky then add more flour a little at a time until it is a good texture to roll out and cut. (I have used coconut flour before for this bit)

Roll out to 5mm, cut into desired shapes (hearts go down just as well as ginger men, even made ginger tea bags once!)

Bake for 12mins until golden.

Decorate as desired, or just eat!

Sultana Scones

225g self raising flour (these do not work with gluten free flour)
55g butter
150ml milk
Handful of sultanas

Preheat oven to 220c

Rub the butter into the flour until it resemble breadcrumbs
Stir through the sultanas
Add milk a little at a time until the mixture is a handleable dough.

Pull into 2 balls, splodge them on a lined baking tray.

Push down a little then score a cross with a knife in both, not all the way threw.

Bake in the oven for 15mins.

Eat while still warm - careful not to burn your mouth!

These are lovely just as they are, or if you are feeling naughty are great with jam and cream too!