Date, Chocolate and Peanut Butter Flapjacks

Treat yourself to a yummy tea break this week with these moreish little bites…with just a little hint of that naughty snickers bar taste!

Makes: 12 squares

Prep: 10mins
Cook: 30mins

Ingredients: 300g porridge oats, 150g of butter (or vegan alternative), 150g of golden syrup, 135g of brown sugar, 80g of pitted chopped dates, 2 tbsps. of peanut butter, 50g of dark salted chocolate (or vegan alternative).

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150°C fan
2. Weigh out your butter, sugar and golden syrup and melt gently in a pan until runny and all ingredient combined
3. Pour the wet ingredients over your oats and dates and mix well until the oats are completely coated in the buttery mixture
4. Swirl in your peanut butter and pour into a lined baking tray so that the flapjack mixture lays an inch thick
5. Pop in the oven for 30mins
6. Allow to cool
7. Melt your chocolate and drizzle over the flapjacks, leave to set or cut into 12 squares and eat straight away…
8. Enjoy!

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Sausage Rice

Try out this easy recipe for mid-week inspiration! Uses mostly store cupboards and freezer ingredients too.

Serves: 4 (with maybe some leftovers)

Cook: 30mins

Prep: 20mins

Ingredients: 1 cup of cooked white rice (basmati or long grain is fine), 1 can of beans or your choice such as chickpea, pinto etc, 1 cup of frozen peas, 2 – 4 (depending on how many you want), decent sized sausages of your choice these can of course be veggie, decent sized sausages of your choice these can of course be veggie, 4 eggs, small bunch of chives or spring onions (keeping a little back for garnish), 1 clove of garlic, 1 veggie or chicken stock cube, splash of oil.

Method:

1. Cook your rice as per instructions and set aside
2. Meanwhile boil your eggs for 10mins and leave to cool
3. Cut your sausages into slices and fry on a medium heat with a little oil in a large pan with the garlic until browned
4. Mix in the chopped chives or spring onions and stir quickly
5. Crumble over your stock cube and add your frozen peas and beans with a little water and mix well
6. Add your rice and stir, so that the rice is coated in all the lovely flavours
7. Peel and slice your eggs and use to top the rice with the remaining chives or spring onions
8. Dig in!

The Lockdown Larder Homemade Tinned Tomato Soup

Remember the taste of the very popular branded canned soup from your childhood…well this is a close second!

Serves: 4

Prep: 5mins

Cook: 25mins

Ingredients: 2 cans of chopped tomatoes (drained weight 240g), 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, vegetable stock made with 300ml of boiling water, 2 tbsps of cream cheese, 1 tbsp of tomato puree and a little oil for frying.

Method:

1. Chop the onion and garlic and soften in a little oil for a few minutes

2. Add the tomatoes and stock, bring to the boil and then keep on a low simmer for 20mins

3. After 20mins add the cream cheese and puree and cook for a few minutes more until melted

4. Blitz in a food processor

5. Slurp and enjoy!

 

The Lockdown Larder Easter Baking Ideas

Want to make some treats over the weekend but can’t leave the house as you’re on Lockdown and keeping those supermarket trips to a minimum? Then I have some ideas for the long weekend to keep you going.

What about Nan’s Jam Tart for starters? I used to love making this with my own Nan as a child and still make it with my daughter.

Who knew homemade pastry was so easy!

Nan’s Jam Tart

Serves: 6

Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 30mins chill time/20 mins in the oven

Ingredients: 100g salted or unsalted butter, 200g self raising flour, 1 egg,

For the filling: jar of jam (your choice but I used one from the St. Dalfour range, as it has less sugar).

Method:

1. Mix the butter and flour into a breadcrumb like consistency, then add one egg to combine the mixture, make into a ball and leave in the fridge for 30mins
2. Pre-heat your oven to 180F
3. Roll out your pastry to the thickness of a pound coin
4. Grease a cake tin ( I used one with W20cm), place the pastry on top, gently pushing down, cutting off any excess which you can use for decoration,
5. Make a few fork marks across the base and now spread your jam all over
6. Bake in the oven for 20mins…
7. Eat hot or cold, served with custard, ice cream or just a nice cuppa!

Cookies are always good right? Try these easy recipes below and adapt additional ingredients to suit what you have in, don’t have dried apple then use other dried fruits such as raisins and dates, don’t have peanuts then use some other nuts instead as long as the quantities are right all will be well.

For recipes go to:

Easy Oaty, (with a little bit of dark chocolate), and Dried Apple Cookies

Inspired by Nigeria: Peanut Butter, Coconut and Banana Chip Crumbly Cookies

Back to School Lunch Box/After School Treat Ideas

And not forgetting the more recent Lockdown Larder Chocolate Flapjacks – just click the link  The Lockdown Larder – Chocolate Flapjacks

 

Got some packets of jelly in the cupboard and some frozen berries in the freezer? Then make up a batch of fruit jelly for your inner child, just make up the jelly as per packet instructions and drop about a cup of frozen fruit in before popping in the fridge to set yummy!

 

 

 

 

Finally, want to do some savoury baking instead and finding it hard to get fresh bread, then my Chorizo Loaf could be the recipe for you: Inspired by Portugal – Chorizo Loaf

 

I hope some of these recipes help make Easter a little sweeter this weekend, please get in touch if you have any other suggestions or have had a go at making some of these recipes.

Stay Safe, Stay Home 

x

The Lockdown Larder – Vegan Chickpea and Coconut Curry with Pea Raita

Friday nights can still be curry night with a few store cupboard ingredients!

Serves: 4

Prep: 10mins
Cook: 20mins

Ingredients: 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 large can of chickpeas (drained weight around 500g), 100ml of passata, can of coconut milk, 1 – 2 tsp of curry paste, depending on how hot you like it, a little oil for frying.

For Pea Raita which uses frozen peas, please click here Inspired by India – Potato and Sweetcorn Samosas with Pea Raita

Method:

1. Chop your garlic and onion and gently fry in a pan with the oil until softened
2.  Add your curry paste and mix well
3.  Pour in the coconut milk and passata, give it all a good stir
4. Add your chickpeas and bring to a simmer and cook for 20mins or until the chickpeas have softened slightly and taken on all of the curry flavour
5. And that’s it…serve with rice and the pea raita if you wish
6. Enjoy!

The Lockdown Larder

As we live through these uncertain times, I wanted to help those of you in lockdown, staying at home and self-isolating to find easy and nutritious ways to keep cooking without having to make a trip to the supermarket or local shop until it’s really necessary or spend hours week on week in an online shopping queue.

Last year I set myself a task of creating new dishes from around the world for 52 weeks. Through this experience I gained a huge insight to the different ingredients and types of cooking used throughout the world especially in countries that do not have access to the abundance of ingredients that many of us have in the Western world.  My family and I have been on lockdown for two weeks so far and I am already finding that I am able to use the information gathered last year to better prepare for cooking within limits.

So as of now I will re-share some of my old recipes and create new ones, some of The Lockdown Larder Recipes are already there waiting for you, just click on the pink link, focussing on making the most of what you already have in your store cupboard, freezers and other staples that hopefully you will have at home. For some of the recipes created so far using mostly store cupboard and freezer ingredients, please click on.

I have also put together a list of products and ingredients you might want to add to your next shop. You may notice that this does not include that many fresh products as these need replenishing more often.

This is not a definitive list and should be used only as a guide to help you prepare for the weeks ahead…So here goes:

Fresh Produce 

Bread (to then be frozen and used as needed)
Cream cheese
Cheeses like parmesan and strong cheddar
Butter or spread
Eggs
Bananas (can be peeled, frozen and added to smoothies)
Lemons/Limes
Potatoes
Garlic
Onions

Freezer 

Frozen fruits like berries
Frozen veg like peas and butternut squash (great for tagines)
Chicken
Quorn
Mince
Fish
Fish fingers (of course!)

 

Store Cupboard  

Porridge Oats (can also be used to make flapjacks)
Long life milk/Oat milk or alternatives
Pasta any type
Rice any type
Noodles
Coconut milk
Baked beans
Other various types of beans
Lentils (dried goes further than canned)
Tinned tomatoes
Flour self-raising, bread flour (can be used as pizza bases)
Sugar
Baking Powder
Tomato puree
Passata
Sweetcorn
Jelly cubes
Stock cubes
Dried herbs and spices
Honey or syrup
Harissa
Pesto
Curry paste
Olive oil/Sun flower oil
Vinegar
Mayonnaise
Jam
Peanut butter
Tinned Tuna
Mustards like wholegrain and Dijon
Sweet chilli sauce
Soy Sauce

Some little extras 

Chorizo
Pancetta
Chocolate
Olives
Dried fruits
Nuts to add crunch, for baking and stir fries.

 

STAY SAFE, STAY HOME

Good luck x

About FeastforFamine

Hi there and welcome to FeastforFamine!

Are you bored with going home to another bowl of pasta, sandwich or reheated lasagna? Going out for a pizza, burger or a steak? If you fancy trying some of the other wonderful stuff going on out there in the world, welcome to my blog, FeastforFamine.

Come on in and join me on my journey around the world, creating food inspired by countries from  Zimbabwe to Peru!

 

FeastForFamine has four main goals, specifically to…

• Promote flavours and ideas from corners of the world less well-travelled or promoted.
• Put my own interpretation on some of those and share my ideas with you.
• Draw attention to some of the issues currently going on in those countries, many of which are suffering greatly from war and/or famine.

The emphasis is on inexpensive, wholesome, widely available ingredients which we don’t always think of pairing. Exotic cooking need not cost the earth, but sometimes takes only a slightly more adventurous approach to give our taste buds something new to look forward to.

Sadly, closer to home, several hundred thousand people in the UK now regularly rely on foodbanks. So, I have deliberately chosen a charity whose scope includes the UK, and hope that the ethos behind my ideas and recipes will make most of them accessible to as many people as possible.

Please feel free to leave any comments or feedback, or suggestions for enhancing any of the recipes. The whole idea of this blog is promote experimentation, exchange of ideas and learning from experience!

Scroll down and be inspired x