Now that we have a beautiful shiny new kitchen I'm determined to use it more! I also have a very convenient office upon whom to inflict my baking, so I will hopefully not have to eat it all myself and get increasingly spherical.

This week started off well with basic, but tasty cinnamon toast, the first batch had way too much sugar, but I added a bit more butter in the second batch and it wasn't quite so horrendously sugary. It also seems to keep well, so there's a tupperware of it in the fridge.

Things then took a bit of a turn for the worse, and dinner turned into a bit of a palaver. I was supposed to be doing a risotto with leftover turkey one evening, but at the last minute discovered that the risotto rice was nowhere to be found. I changed tack and made a dinner-pie instead, a pie that contains the entire meal and doesn't need anything cooked separately. I made it in my big lasagne dish constructed it from turkey (some of the defrosted leftovers from the xmas party) and parboiled potatoes, carrots and parsnips. It was also supposed to have leftover stuffing but I forgot it, much to my annoyance. It was a *proper* pie with shortcrust lid and sides, but there wasn't quite enough pastry so it was a bit patchy. The defrosted stock I was using looked deeply unpleasant as well, so I was stingy and it ended up a bit dry...now I think about it, I should have put cranberry sauce in as well. It wasn't bad, just not really worth the effort.

The big excitement of the weekend though was baking flapjacks to take to work (recipe cut below). I thought I'd try something vaguely healthy rather than run the risk of people being sick of cake and chocolate (as it turned out, instead they were having difficulty going cold-turkey and complained about needing chocolate). The first batch was ok, even though I forgot to put the sultanas in. The second batch however were amazing, swapping in some cranberries for some of the apricots was a good call. Using apple sauce to hold them together makes them feel a lot healthier than adding 1/2 a jar of golden syrup, and I am also not nearly as ashamed as I apparently should be about the fact that I bought a jar of apple sauce instead of making it from scratch. They lasted really well in tupperware, easily 5 days and probably longer, but I ran out.

Didn't manage anything more exciting than eggy bread yesteday, and am now pondering what to bake this afternoon.


Chewy Flapjack bars from Complete Comfort Food

Group A:
270g apple sauce
115g apricots - on my second batch i replaced about a 3rd of the apricots with dried cranberries as the first batch lacked a bit of bite
115g raisins - I used sultanas, and actually completely forgot them on the first batch with no major side effects)
50g demerara sugar
50g sunflower seeds
25g sesame seeds
25g pumpkin seeds

Group B:
75g rolled oats
75g self raising flour
50g dessicated coconut
2 eggs

Grease a 20cm/8inch square tin (I didn't have one so used a brownie tin that was almost the same surface area), line it with greaseproof paper, making sure that it sticks out plenty and is folded into the corners neatly.

Preheat overn to 200degC/400degF/Gas Mark 6

Mix Group A together
Add group B - stir well with a big wooden spoon
Put in tin and push it to the edges. I smoothed it all out then roughed it up a bit with a fork to get some sticky up bits to go browner
Bake for 25 mins ish (mine needed a bit longer) until golden and "just firm to touch"
Leave in pan to cool completely and then turn out and cut up. I made little inch square pieces which were perfect!