Vegan salty balls

Original recipe from Hannah Grant via her @dailystews Instagram account. Modified as to what I had to hand, with some thoughts for next time...

- 130g dark roast crunchy peanut butter (next time try smooth, either almond, cashew or coconut)
- 5.5tbsp maple syrup (used half honey as I ran out of syrup)
- 50g Vive chocolate protein powder
- 50g oats (basic porridge oats so not whizzed to flour, but would try next time)
- 25g desiccated coconut
- large pinch salt
- juice and zest of 1 lime (thought this would go better with the chocolate protein)
- 1 tsp cocoa powder (my addition)

I was able to press and roll these into balls rather than cutting into squares, I think squares would have been more difficult.

This made 24 x 15g balls. Each: 64 calories, 3.5g protein, 5g carbs, 3.5g fat. They taste pretty good and are a nice alternative to the date/cocoa based ones I've done before. More lime, more salt next time = margarita balls ;)

Black bean soup

Not a precise recipe, but a good flavour combination.

Saute celery, carrot and onion with oil and plenty of cumin, smoked paprika, black pepper, plus chilli flakes to taste. Add 2 veg (or any) stock cubes made up with a litre of water, a generous dollop of tomato puree, and a splash of wine/cider vinegar. Add 2 tins of black beans, drained and rinsed. Simmer until carrots and beans are soft, then puree half of the soup.

Nut butter cookies

Looking for an easy vegan cookie recipe I found this one from the Veg Space. I used almond butter and almonds, instead of peanut butter and peanuts, although I had to factor down the amounts as 185g of nut butter is bigger than the entire jar I had! Interestingly, 0.6 of the recipe made 16 perfectly decent cookies, so they came in at 135 calories each not 272 as per the original (12 made from the full recipe).

They were... OK. They tasted fine but spread a LOT more than the ones on the blog, and cooled to a very crunchy texture (harder than ginger nuts) - would benefit from a dunk when eating. They were also quite greasy to handle. Not sure I would make them again when there are so many peanut butter cookie recipes around.

To be fair, it may just be that the almond butter is a thinner consistency (and more oily) than peanut butter. But there is a lot of sugar (more than flour, by weight), which is probably responsible for the hard and crunchy texture, so I'd like to find a less-sweet one that bakes up much softer.

Chocolate hazelnut "bliss balls"

Aldi has discontinued my favourite flavour of their Palaeo bars (cacao-hazelnut, not that I ever saw the mythical brazil-cherry that was on the shelf tag as that sounded awesome too...). I figured I could make something similar, and found this recipe from A Cupful of Kale.

80g hazelnuts (whole or chopped - I did not bother roasting mine)
200g dates
1.5 tbsp cocoa / cacao powder (5g?)
2 tbsp peanut butter (40g)
2 tbsp maple syrup (40g)

In a food processor, chop the nuts if you have whole ones, then add the rest of the ingredients and process until roll-able into balls. I had about 350g of mixture so made 17 balls of about 20g each. Two of them would be about equivalent to one of the bars.

They taste great, but could use even more cocoa flavour so next time I will add more of that, and a little salt.

Picnic loaf (pan bagnat)

I have fancied trying this for a while, and a shared picnic gave me the opportunity. I used this recipe from Delicious mag but it's really simple and flexible! A large round loaf, some grilled veg, cheese and herbs, and some time.

The base is a crusty white "boule" loaf - mine was from Waitrose, 400g. It would have been handy for it to be a bit taller, but there wasn't any choice. It still worked. I cut a lid off and then scooped out the insides. The recipe said to leave 2-3cm of bread at the crust, but this was too much and I would leave a thinner border next time; it was quite bready to eat and I had leftover veg and cheese that wouldn't fit in. The bread can't be too thin or else it will fall apart, but I think it would be fine with 1-2cm. Also, I think my bread was fresh (instore bakery) on the day I constructed the loaf, rather than day old as specified, but I did the cutting and scooping and left it under a teatowel while I did the veg, so it did dry out a bit.

For the veg I used 2 medium courgettes sliced diagonally (0.5cm), 4 portobello mushrooms, and average sized red and yellow peppers cut into sixths. The grilling was the most time consuming element, but it was worth tending to them to get good and even browning. I marinated the grilled veg in oil, red wine vinegar, garlic and fresh basil, as per the recipe, for a couple of hours.

I spread tapenade into the bread bowl before layering up the marinated veg with some sliced ball mozzarella and more fresh basil, pressing everything well into the outside edges underneath the lip. Even packing it in, I still had enough leftover veg and cheese for lunch the next day! You could probably spin out a single mozzarella ball to do this recipe if you sliced it thinly enough.

The finished loaf was wrapped tightly in clingfilm and left under a baking tray weighted with six tins of beans (~3kg), a bit more than suggested in the recipe. After being pressed for a couple of hours I sliced it into 6 wedges (not 8) and left it in the fridge overnight. It was well recieved at the picnic and I'd make it again for a similar occasion .

Variations I would try:

• include olives, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, peppadew peppers or artichoke hearts (easy to make a tasty vegan version with some of these and no cheese)
• add salami or other flavourful meat
• try goat's cheese or feta
• swap tapenade for pesto
• individual versions in bread rolls

Parsnip cake

A Moosewood recipe, originally entitled Anna's Country Spice Cake. I have metricated the (American) recipe and added my own topping - orange-cinnamon icing with caramelised walnuts. You could sub carrots for the parsnips.

It's possible to make this vegan by subbing the eggs with aquafaba.

Mix together 120ml (=100g) vegetable oil, 165g brown sugar, 2 eggs [6 tbsp aquafaba] and the zest of a large orange. When well combined, stir in 300g grated parsnip (equated to one large one, minus the toughest bit of core) and 120g chopped/crushed tinned pineapple (half a tin of chunks, drained then chopped roughly).

Sift together 225g self raising flour, extra 1tsp baking powder, a pinch of salt, and then cinnamon, ginger and cloves to taste (suggest 1.5tsp cinnamon, 1tsp ginger, 0.5tsp cloves). Stir into wet mix, then fold in dried fruit and nuts to your preference (cranberries work really well, also sultanas, and walnuts).

Bake in a 20cm square tin (greased & lined) for approx 1 hour at 160°C (fan) or until risen and springy.

To decorate: make up icing sugar to the desired consistency with orange juice, and add orange zest and cinnamon. This could be just a drizzle or enough for a full-on topping, as you like. Optionally, sprinkle with chopped walnuts, and for an extra touch use caramelised ones (55g sugar, 15g butter, melt and coat (chopped) nuts, then separate on a silicone mat before they solidify, or deliberately allow to set together then bash/chop into pieces of brittle).

I made this again for a bake sale and topped it with a pack of Violife 'cream cheese' blended with icing sugar and orange zest to taste. I caramelised some pecans using sunflower spread and caster sugar - they're a bit grainy but it works!

Butternut squash casserole

An inevitably-tweaked BBC Good Food recipe. Ripe for slow cooker conversion but haven't done it yet - although it's so easy, as long as you have 30 minutes to really let it simmer it will be fine.

2 onions
1 clove garlic
500g each butternut squash and sweet potato (peeled, chopped, and handily frozen by Tesco...)
1 jar roasted red peppers (I buy them from the World Foods aisle where they are cheaper)
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tin chick peas
ground cumin
freshly ground cumin seeds
paprika
1 stock cube of your choice made up with about 100ml water


Chop the onion and fry along with the spices until translucent. Chuck in the peppers (chopped), squash and sweet potato, chick peas, tomatoes and stock then simmer until the squash and potato are soft.

Optionally, serve with grated cheese, fresh coriander, plain yogurt, and cous cous. But it's fine as a one pot.

Bonfire beauties

We had a really lovely bonfire party at friends' yesterday, lots of sharing dishes and cakes. Here's one recipe from me, and one from someone else that I tried on the night and loved.

Bonfire cupcakes (makes 24)

I made a standard 4-egg chocolate sponge mix (sub out 30g flour for cocoa powder). For me, this made 24 cupcakes with about 40g raw mix. I made them in muffin cases so there was a bit of freeboard, and they baked in about 20 minutes at 160°C (fan).

Once cooled:

Paint the top with marmalade and roll in, or sprinkle on, any chocolate/dark sprinkles, especially around the edge.

Pipe in a 'fire' of buttercream. I made one with 250g butter, 350g icing sugar, and milk to loosen (turned out there was about 20-25% too much for what I needed, but I don't like over-frosted cakes). I coloured it red, orange and yellow in three batches with gel colour, and placed it in the piping bag by alternating spoonfuls.

Add chocolate sticks for "wood" - I used posh Elizabeth Shaw things due to a lack of choice but Matchmakers would be ideal. There are 24 in a box and I had 2 boxes, so each cake got 6 bits. However, the sticks needed to be shorter than I first thought to look good (too-tall pyramid fires look silly) so I have a pot of snapped off ends to eat...

For a final touch I added two mini marshmallows on a cocktail stick to each :)

The other recipe I want to record before I lose it...

Delicious, rich-tasting, barbecue-y vegan baked beans from A Virtual Vegan. (Advice is to omit the vinegar.)

Lentil and spinach curry

An easy weeknight veggie recipe from Prima. This was really tasty and very simple. My modified version used no chilli, and no stock as the tinned lentils were already cooked and needed no extra liquid. Even without it, the curry was quite soupy.

Fry a chopped onion until translucent, and add 3-4 tbsp (or to taste) of curry paste and a little water. This time I used Patak's Rogan Josh. Tip in 2 drained tins of green lentils and one of tomatoes, plus a small tin of coconut cream/milk (I used cream) and simmer while you cook the rice. With about 5-10 mins left, drop in several blocks of frozen spinach (I used about 7 since that's what was left in the bag!) and cook until defrosted and heated through. This made 4 polite portions or 3 hearty ones.

Next time I'd add a load of finely chopped mushrooms with the onion, to bulk out the curry and add a different texture. Definitely one to cook again.

Moroccan potato bake

This recipe came via Tinned Tomatoes, although is not original to that blog. It fulfilled both a need for an easy extra meal this week (menu planing fail) and more veggie meals. I liked it and would make it again!

My tweaked version:

Cook 750g potatoes in vegetable stock to the just-cooked point. I used charlotte as they are my favourite combination of flavour and texture. When you drain them, save some of the stock!

Chop a red onion and 2 cloves garlic. Soften in a pan with oil first, then a splash of stock and the spices (to taste: smoked paprika, cumin, ginger, sumac) plus tomato puree, a chopped preserved lemon, and white wine or cider vinegar. Also add chopped jarred (roasted and skinned) red peppers and peas. Simmer for a few minutes then add the potatoes and reserved stock, and bash around a bit so they start to break and add thickness to the sauce. Simmer further to the desired consistency.


The main edits I made were to use a whole onion (nobody needs half an onion hanging about), add sumac for a bit of extra zing, and peas for colour and extra veg. It could do with some protein so next time I'd add chickpeas, or chicken or sausage if I didn't want it to be veggie. But the lemon, vinegar and sumac made for a different-tasting dish and that was the best bit.

Porotos granados (squash & bean stew)

This is one from HFW's Veg Every Day! book that for some reason I didn't blog before. It's become a bit of a favourite - a good tasty one-pot meal and a nice veggie recipe to add into our rotation. Can be done stovetop or in the slow cooker.

The recipe is online here but essentially it's a stew of squash, green beans, sweetcorn and tinned beans (we usually use black-eyed or pinto but any will do), in an onion, garlic and stock base, with smoked paprika and oregano plus a bay leaf. My only amendment to the recipe is, if I'm cooking on the hob, the usual pre-cooking of the peeled and chopped squash (I microwave it on high for 8-9 minutes while I do the onions and garlic) which ensures it's nice and soft in a reasonable cooking time on the hob. Nothing worse than being all ready for a comforting stew and finding hard chunks of squash that need more cooking :(

Slow cooker: it's fine after about 5 hours on high, depending on the squash.

I find it really benefits from plenty of herbs and black pepper, but the combination of soft squash and beans, and crunchy greens and sweetcorn, is great. It's a good winter warmer and goes well with dumplings on top!

When out of both green beans and sweetcorn I added (frozen, shelled) edamame. They keep their texture a bit more when slow cooking. A good squeeze of tomato puree and a dash of cumin also work well.

Spinach and coconut dal

I have found a new blog I love - Tinned Tomatoes. On name alone it should appeal, since I use a lot of said ingredient, but there are over 500 vegetarian and vegan recipes on there, many of which I am very keen to try. And they don't all feature tinned tomatoes... like this one:

Spinach and coconut dal is the easiest thing I have cooked in ages. And one of the tastiest! At 600 cals per portion (using the whole lot as 4 portions) it's not the lightest, but once in a while does no harm. It would also be great as part of a thali-type mixed meal.

First wilt 200g fresh spinach: wash, then in the colander pour over boiling water, then cold water. Squeeze out the excess moisture (keep it - see below) and then chop. Or use frozen spinach :)

Put 400g red lentils, 400ml coconut cream, 600ml stock and spices (1 tsp each coriander, ginger, tumeric and chilli powder, 2tsp cumin) together in a large pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 mins, stirring occasionally. Add the spinach and simmer 5-10 mins more. Serve seasoned with black pepper, accompanied by breads or rice.

I didn't keep the spinach liquid, and wished I had. It looked like I was pouring good stuff away, and then I needed to add more liquid to the dal. Sigh. Also I used some coriander I had previously blitzed and frozen, rather than fresh (must do that more often), and there was some extra water in that, so if using fresh you'd almost certainly need to add water.

I had mine with rice and mango chutney, but to be honest some chapattis would have suited it better. Later this week I might try blitzing it down with more stock to make a soup, as suggested on the blog - I think it would work really well. Finally, I might also freeze a portion and then make more before too long, but use less-calorific coconut milk instead of cream. Then I can do a taste test!

Chickpeas and spinach with ginger

Another veggie (vegan, in this case) one-pot recipe, chickpeas and spinach with ginger is very similar to the spinach and chickpea curry that we already do, pretty much just swapping curry paste for ginger. I don't think I've blogged the curry, since it hardly counts as a recipe, so this post covers both.

The ginger recipe is from Serious Eats, and part of a whole series of vegan recipes. Since it took a bit of searching to confirm the can sizes for chick peas and tomatoes, I'll just add that I used 2 of each, normal sized cans (~400g, or ~240g drained in the case of the chickpeas). Needless to say, I did not use the massive amounts of oil called for, but if your diet allows, by all means leave a comment to tell me what I am missing...

Fundamentally the recipe blends half the tomatoes with a good amount of fresh ginger, and adds it to cooked onions and garlic, then adds spinach, and finally chickpeas. Bay leaves, salt and soy sauce ramp up the flavour, although I omitted the suggested vinegar and oil for serving. I will say that I simmered mine for a lot longer to further soften the chickpeas, and ended up with beautifully silky spinach and a richer sauce. There wasn't really enough spinach as I thought the large bag I bought was big enough, but it really could take more. I didn't use the can liquid from the chick peas as suggested, and I think it would have been too runny if I had.

I served this on its own, and we demolished the whole lot in a greedy-pig-portion each, with some left over for Small. Next time I'll do it with rice or another grain, or possibly some sort of bread, plus more spinach, and make it last two meals. The flavour was excellent with the ginger, something I never would have thought of adding to tomatoes, and I can see it becoming a regular on our menu.

The curry we already do is very similar, without the blending. Cook the onions slowly in curry paste and some of the juice from the tomatoes. Add the rest of the tomatoes, chickpeas, and spinach, and simmer for as long as you want to. Butternut squash is another common addition if I have some already cooked (I often roast a squash, just cut in half, to use in various recipes through the week such as risotto, macaroni cheese, cous cous, etc.), but it takes too long to cook from raw in this recipe.

Jerk sweet potato & black bean curry

I am always on the lookout for easy, interesting, and preferably cheap meat-free meals. As well as making our budget go further, I think it's a good idea to eat less meat for environmental reasons too, but as much as anything I think it's good to mix things up and try a wide variety of foods.

This is (guess what) another BBC Good Food recipe. It caught my eye in the magazine as part of a "cook for a group of 10" article, but I usually halve it and make four decent portions. It sounded good to me as a combination of things we already eat often (sweet potato, pulses), things we're less familiar with (jerk seasoning, ready roasted peppers), all in an easy one-pot recipe. It's become a firm favourite!

Ingredients

• 2 onions, 1 diced, 1 roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• 50g ginger, roughly chopped
• small bunch coriander, leaves and stalks separated
• 3 tbsp jerk seasoning (I'd use less the first time you make it, until you find a balance between the brand of jerk you use and your own taste/tolerance - I found it pretty intense first time)
• 2 thyme sprigs
• 400g can chopped tomatoes (I use a whole can, less some of the juice, even if halving the recipe)
• 4 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp demerara sugar
• 2 vegetable stock cubes, made up with 600ml water
• 1kg sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 x 400g cans black beans, rinsed and drained (in some supermarkets these are in the "world foods" section (Jamaican), for some reason, rather than with the other canned pulses - or they're in both and the world foods ones are cheaper...)
• 450g jar roasted red peppers, cut into thick slices (these keep well if halving the recipe. Again, world foods aisle is the place for the cheap ones. Lidl/Aldi often have enormo-jars.)

Method

Whizz together the roughly chopped onion, the ginger, coriander stalks and jerk seasoning, and set aside. In a jug, combine the vinegar, sugar and stock.

Soften  the diced onion in oil, and when it starts to become translucent add the jerk mix. Fry "until fragrant", about 2-3 minutes, and then add the stock mix, tomatoes and thyme. Bring to a simmer and then leave bubbling for about 10 minutes to get the flavours well combined.

Drop in the sweet potato and simmer for 10 minutes or until the chunks are starting to become tender (might be longer - you don't want them crunchy!). Add the peppers and beans, and simmer for 5 minutes more. Chop the coriander and stir in just before serving, saving a few leaves for garnish.

We serve it with rice or tortilla wraps, or just a larger portion with no accompaniment, and plain yogurt on the side. I've slipped a few chopped green beans in when there have been some to use up, and they're a good addition. Butternut squash also works in place of sweet potato, but needs to be simmered for longer than 10 mins. Black beans work very well but you could probably substitute any pulses if you can't find them - I haven't tried others yet. This is one of those "even better the next day" recipes as the flavours really do their thing overnight in the fridge.

Courgette rice salad

Based on an old Weight Watchers recipe, this is useful for getting through a glut of courgettes. The proportions don't matter too much (i.e. I didn't weigh anything this time!) and nor does the other veg.

2 med-large courgettes*
200g rice (I used a basmati-wild rice mix)
2 large red or yellow peppers **
med bunch parsley
med bunch coriander

juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp dark soy sauce, or 2 tbsp light soy sauce (light is probably better)
1-2 tsp tabasco, to taste

handful each of sunflower and pumpkin seeds

* if they have grown into marrows then you might want to peel them as the skin can get tough/bitter. Also remove the central part if it's gone spongy, and any seeds.
** mange tout, sugar snaps or green beans also work well


Cook the rice, drain, rinse, and leave to cool.
Grate the courgettes (a food processor is your friend...) and finely dice the peppers. Finely chop the herbs.
Combine the dressing ingredients.
Mix everything together.
Toast the seeds in a dry frying pan, and scatter over the top of the salad.

Lucky dips

For a lovely festive get together with friends today, I made some dips as my contribution. They were based on the following BBC Good Food recipes:

Butter bean, lemon & herb pate

Tangy roast pepper & walnut dip

Cream cheese & sweet chilli dip

Of course, I can't leave anything alone, so my tweaked recipes are:

Butterbean dip
2 400g cans butterbeans, drained
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
Handful of torn coriander
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 good tsp ground cumin
2-3 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Whizz everything in a food processor to the desired consistency. If you need more liquid, add water or runny yogurt. Next time I think I will add some toasted and well-ground cumin seeds.

Hard to say how many it serves as it depends on the situation, but this makes a takeaway container full.


Roast pepper dip
2 jars roast red peppers (not hot!)
150g walnuts
1 clove garlic, crushed
A good squeeze of tomato puree (2 tbsp?)
1 tbsp cider vinegar (or any decent vinegar)
5-6 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp 'normal' paprika
small pinch of hot smoked paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil gently with the spices and garlic. Meanwhile, whizz the other ingredients together in a food processor, and pour in the warm oil and spices. Adjust consistency and seasoning to taste.

This makes half to two-thirds of a takeaway container.


Cream cheese & sweet chilli
1 regular pack cream cheese
1 regular pot greek yogurt, e.g. Total
Handful of coriander, torn
Salt to taste
Sweet chilli sauce

Whizz the yogurt, cream cheese, coriander and salt together (I used a stick blender this time). Pour it into a serving dish, and layer the sweet chilli sauce on top (adjust amount to taste). Dip your dipping things through it to get some of each layer.

All the dips are vegetarian, and the first two are vegan.

Dipping things
To dip, I just put together lots of lovely fresh veg, and some home made pitta chips: split pittas, cut into rough triangles, brushed with oil, seasoned, and baked at 180°C for 8-10 mins until crisp.

It turned out to be easiest to cut the pittas with scissors - first crosswise into two pockets, then each pocket flatwise (if that's even a word) into separate sides, and then each side into triangles. My idea of microwaving them to puff them up and separate the two sides didn't work, they just got soggy and harder to cut.

Spiced winter root vegetable cake

Hmm, sounds appealing, huh? It's delicious, honestly! Basically you can make this with either carrots or parsnips. If you want to try other root veg, you're on your own (but let me know how it turns out if you're brave enough!) It's a lovely seasonal winter cake.

I got this from the Moosewood Book of Desserts, and they say it's originally a USA pioneer recipe, which is why you have no perishable ingredients like dairy, eggs or fat. This makes it vegan, and moderately healthy but remember fat-free can still be calorific... especially if you use the full whack of sugar. The recipe is very easy as long as you plan ahead (and maybe have a food processor to do the grating!). It's American, so all in cups - I reckon 2 cups of grated veg is about 3 large carrots or 2 med-large parsnips. I keep meaning to weigh the ingredients myself next time I make it, but always get halfway through before remembering... (1 cup = 8 fluid ounces in a measuring jug if you don't have any measuring cups, or try this site to convert to grams for specific ingredients.)

Ingredients

• 2 cups (packed) finely grated carrots or parsnips
• 0.75-1 cup packed brown sugar [original amount in the recipe was 1.5 cups but I found it too sweet]
• 1.75 cups water
• 1 cup sultanas or other dried fruit (chopped to sultana size). Sultanas are great, but I also like apricots with carrots, and cranberries seem to go well with parsnips, but you could use dates, figs, whatever you have lurking. A small amount of candied ginger, finely chopped, can be a nice addition.
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 0.25 tsp ground cloves
• 0.5 tsp ground nutmeg or fresh grated
• 0.5 tsp ground ginger, or 1-2 tsp fresh grated ginger
  [be a little heavy handed with the spices if you want more of a winter warmer gingerbread effect, but go easy on the cloves, tiger]
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder

Method
Combine the carrots, sugar, water, fruit (plus fresh ginger, if using) and vanilla in a saucepan - bring this to the boil, simmer for 5 minutes, remove from heat, cover, and let sit for >1hr or overnight. All the fruit plumps up and the flavours mingle. Yum!

Preheat oven to 300F / 150C / Gas 2. Grease and flour a 9-10" pan, or put cases in a 12x muffin tin.
Combine the dry ingredients (flour, spices, salt, baking soda and powder) in a bowl. Stir the carrot mix into the dry mix just until no dry traces are left. Pour the combined mix into the pan, and bake until firm/springy and a skewer comes out more or less clean (you want it to be moist, but cooked) - about 1 hr for a cake or roughly 30 mins for muffins I think (keep an eye on them).

Cool the cake in the pan for 10 mins, then on a rack. Optionally, poke a few holes in the cake while warm and drizzle a lemon/orange sugar syrup over the top. If you don't need the cake to be vegan, cream cheese based icing/frosting is decadent but occasionally called for :) (Cream cheese, icing sugar, citrus zest/juice or spices to taste - just make sure the cake is fully cool before spreading it.) But to be honest, this cake is good just as it is.

Rich flapjacks and quick vegan chocolate cake

A couple of quick recipes I did for the cake stall at the triathlon club's duathlon today:

Date and walnut flapjack - or any variations!
(based on a plain recipe from a member's post on the old Delia Smith forums, now deleted)

• 250g butter (I use salted)
• 75g light muscovado sugar
• 75g dark muscovado sugar
• 2 tbsb (ish) golden syrup (about 40g)
• 2 tbsp (ish) treacle (about 40g)
  I measure the syrup and treacle into the pan with the sugars and butter, so weighing is easier than measuring spoons. If you use a spoon then oil it first so the syrup/treacle won't stick.
• 400g oats (but see below)
• 150g (ish) dates
• 100g (ish) walnuts
• splash of boiling water

1. Melt the butter, sugar and syrup together in a large saucepan and allow to boil for a couple of minutes.
2. Stir this mixture into the oats. If it seems too dry, don't worry, wait a few minutes and let the liquid soak the oats, and stir again. If it's too dry (can depend on your oats), quickly heat a bit more syrup and stir it in.
   
3. Press just over half the mixture into a 9" (or so) square tin.
4. Roughly chop the dates and place into a saucepan with a splash of water from the kettle (100ml or so, but it will depend on your dates). Heat gently and stir until you get a jammy consistency.
5. Spread the "jam" onto the flapjack layer.
6. Blitz the walnuts in a food processor, or chop finely, and stir into the remaining flapjack mix.
7. Spread the walnut flapjack roughly on top of the date layer.
8. Bake at 190C for 15-20 minutes, depending how crispy you like the top.
9. Cut into 16 pieces.

These went down really well, and were moist in the middle but just a little toasted on the top and at the edges. It's really up to you how much date "jam" you make and how nutty you make the topping. I also used a bit more than the stated 2 tbsp each of syrup and treacle.

The original recipe said 500g oats but I find this a bit dense. You can vary it according to taste, if you want stickier flapjacks then go for 350ish, or increase the amount for more solid ones.

Of course, you can vary the filling/inclusions as you like, and it doesn't have to be sandwich style. Just beware that chocolate chip flapjacks don't really work as the hot syrup mix melts the chips when you mix them in... but they do work well sandwich style (half the oats, 100g dark choc chips sprinkled over, then the rest of the oats). The choc chip sandwich goes nicely with crystallised ginger (finely diced) and a teaspoon of ground ginger in the oat mix. Grated (chilled/frozen) or sliced marzipan in the middle and chopped cherries in the mix is another winning combination.

Update: for a vegan version you can use coconut oil instead of butter, but it just doesn't mix with the sugar and syrup in the same way as butter - it remains completely separate in the pan. This requires a lot of mixing with the oats, so be ready!

Six-minute chocolate cake
From the Moosewood Book of Desserts

• 1.5 cups plain flour
• Half cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• Two thirds cup sugar (I used golden caster)
• Half cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup cold water or coffee
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cider vinegar

1. Mix the dry ingredients together.
2. Mix the wet ingredients (except the vinegar) together.
3. Mix the wet and dry ingredients and beat until smooth.
4. Add the vinegar, stir well until just mixed (work quickly - the longer you take and the more you stir, the more air you lose from the mix).
5. Divide between 12 cake/muffin cases in a tin.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 190C until springy to the touch and a skewer comes out clean.

For an even quicker cake, don't faff about with muffin cases but bake in a larger tin (20-25 minutes) - or even mix the ingredients directly in the tin. Very little washing up - excellent! These cakes are vegan and very tasty, and wonderfully light in texture. The mixture is strong enough to hold chocolate chips without them sinking, and you can do all the usual stuff with the finished cakes, like butterfly buns (with vegan spread "butter"cream if needed) or coring out a little space for some marmalade or cherry jam.