Clean Eating Cookies

I got this recipe from a friend, and they are really quite delicious.

The recipe is so simple and easy, and so open to lots of different variations, I can see these being a firm favourite in our house.

Let me share it with you.

What you need:

• 4 ripe bananas
• 6oz Porridge Oats
• 4oz Peanuts & Raisins
• Real Vanilla Essence
• Cinnamon

What you do:

• Mash up the bananas with a fork.

• Chuck in the oats and raisins, cinnamon and vanilla essence and give a good mix.

• Divide the mixture into 8 - this gives you a very large cookie, so saves you having two  ;)   You might want to half them again if you don't want big cookies.  Pop the balls of mix onto greaseproof paper.

• Flatten them down slightly and bung them in the oven.  Gas 6, for about  minutes.15-20 mins.

• Hide ...... I mean, share  ;)

You can of course substitute the nuts for other things, like chocolate chips (not so healthy), dried cranberries, coconut, pecans..... the list is endless.

Strawberry & Black Pepper Scones

They look quite delicious don't they?  And even though they were a complete experiment, I think they were quite nice, if a little flat.

What happened was, I picked a load of strawberries from my own garden, :I dug around in the nettles and brought up a t-shirt full of luscious red berries.   (Should have taken a bowl).

Two days later they are still in the fridge waiting for someone to eat them, I think they were a bit ugly to be honest, so I had to think of something to do with them.  Waste not, want not, and all that.

So, using the "Rich Scone" recipe from my tatty old Bero book, I bashed a load up - leaving out the dried fruit, chopped up the strawberries and added a good grind of black pepper - well, strawberries are supposed to go with black pepper rather well I have been told.

I patted it down rather than roll it out, but I think I took it a little too thin, along with the extra moisture from the strawberries it ended up being more "rock bun" like than scone like.

I chopped it into wedges and bunged it in the oven.

Then tested one hot out of the oven and nearly burnt my tongue off!  Those strawberries can really hold the heat  ;)

The black pepper gave a very subtle but 'you know it is there' kick.  Very nice, will make them again, but with a dried scone mix so they might rise a bit better.