inner pickle

Slice of Wednesday: Muesli Bars

 

 

D'you know, my very first post, in May 2009, was a muesli bar recipe. In fact, this one. It was before I'd thought about actually including photos of the food, and unless you are either of my two sisters you probably never read it. 

So I'm posting it again. 

There's something else about these little bars: before there was Buena Vista Farm Bikkies there was Grub Organics. I never actually got to retail stage, but I put way more time into the recipe testing phase than I ever did with the Bikkies. It was a little organics snackfood company for kids that I was building with my friend Anita, and my muesli bars were probably the product I was most proud of. I make a mean muesli bar. It has to be hard, solid, seedy, not too sweet, a bit chewy, and have lots of toasted oats. 

 

 

 

What I love about this one is that it's very flexible, depending what is in your cupboard. The original recipe on my recipe index has wheatgerm (which I'm out of today) and pepitas (also out.) Just sub in whatever you like. Chuck in apricots. Dates. Swap out the quinoa for rolled barley or whatever you have. 

 

 

 

Muesli Bar

Ingredients:

1 cup oats

½ cup sunflower kernals

½ cup linseed

1 cup quinoa flakes

½ cup sesame seeds

1 cup sultanas

½ cup dried cranberries

125g butter, melted

½ cup honey

 

OK. Grease and line with baking paper a 3cm deep 16x28cm tin. A slice tin. Or really, whatever size you've got that's not in the dishwasher. 

Cook the oats, quinoa flakes, sunflower kernals and linseed in a frying pan over a medium heat, stirring until golden or you start to lose your sense of humour about it.

Transfer to a bowl. Put it somewhere to cool where the baby won't tip it over her head. Stir in sultanas and cranberries.

Cook butter and honey in a small saucepan over medium heat for a few minutes. No, your stirring arm should not be fatigued yet. Bring to boil and reduce heat to low. Simmer, without stirring, for a few minutes until the mixture is really golden. Let's say bronzed. Add to dry ingredients and stir until combined.

Spoon into your pan and use a large metal spoon to press down firmly. Cool and cut into bars. If you store it in a foil lined container they'll be good for seven days. Good luck keeping them in the cupboard that long. Now insist someone else do the washing up. You did the cooking and it's a very tasty, healthy snack. You gave birth AND you just made something with sunflower kernals in it. You are awesome.

 

 

 

I love Wednesdays.

Thanks for visiting and inspiring me to make a slice. 

xxx

Slice of Wednesday: no-bake Hedgehog recipe

 

 

 

Oh my goodness, this slice. *Respectful silence*

My mouth is watering just flicking through the photos. My fingers are itching to go get a piece out of the fridge. And you know what, I CAN'T. Because I had the foresight to give the entire thing away after sampling one (OK, two) pieces, (yes OK maybe two and an edgy bit) and knowing that unless it was in someone else's fridge I was bound to nibble at least another three pieces while writing a rhapsodising post about it. 

I made it up, so this sounds totally egotistical, really.

Am so besotted with my own slice I might give it it's own webpage. 

It's the combination of roasted, salted peanuts, dark chocolate and chocolate digestive biscuits. It's just a hedgehog-y thing, you've seen them before. 

But you HAVE to try this. Then seriously, give it to the canteen ladies or something, because if you have the self control to just nibble a tiny peice at a time, you deserve to be canonised.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hedgehog

(You may notice that from a girl constantly banging on about 'from scratch' that there's a lot of not from-scratch ingredients here. Bought bikkies. Condensed milk. Pre-salted and roasted nuts. It just means it takes approximately four minutes to make this way.)

 

100g butter

100g dark chocolate

1 tin (395g) condensed milk

⅓ cup cocoa

200g packet chocolate digestive biscuits, chopped

1 cup salted and roasted peanuts

 

Ganache for the top:

50g butter

100g dark chocolate

 

In a saucepan melt the butter, chocolate and the condensed milk together until they are smooth and amalgamated. Add the cocoa, the chopped up biscuits and the nuts. Combine well then press into a greased and lined slice tin (I think mine is 13cm x 27cm). Stick in fridge for 1-2 hours or until firm.

To make the ganache just stir the butter and chocolate over a low heatfor a couple of minutes until melted then spread over the cold slice. Set (again) in fridge for 1-2 hours until hard.

Sprinkle with cocoa to serve.

Cuts into about 12 or in my case two and an edgy bit then into a container and out the door before I find myself eating the whole thing. 

 

 

 

Oh chocolatey biscuity peanuty slice.

How I love you. I miss you. And without you I am a lesser person (hopefully, say, two to three kilograms lesser.)

xxx

A Slice of Wednesday: not quite a White Christmas

 

You know you're a bit saturated in northern hemisphere culture when your Australian kids ask whether it really is Christmas time, like, where's the snow?

We don't do fake snow on the trees or windows over here. We embrace a warm Christmas and a cool seafood lunch. 

More on Christmas traditions another day, I want to give you this White Christmas before it becomes a slice of Thursday. (By the way, chicken processing all went very well thank you, it was quick and interesting and the birds look wonderful. We had one roasted with lemon and garlic and thyme last night and it was nearly 4kg - a big bird - and delicious. But a 3.30am start and working all day yesterday and today in the commercial kitchen baking for a big market this weekend: I'm a bit cactus.)

 

Not Quite White Christmas

440g white chocolate (I just used 2 x 220g blocks), melted

1 cup rice bubbles

1 cup dried cranberries

1 cup (100g) slivered almonds

½ cup of shredded coconut

 

Melt the chocolate in a big bowl (I did this in the microwave) and stir all the other ingredients in together. 

Press into a slice tin and chill in the fridge for about half an hour until firm.

SO QUICK. 

It takes precisely 2 minutes to make this and doesn't even need cooking. 

It's festive and simple and would look sweet stacked and wrapped in cellophane as a gift. 

My main challenge is hanging onto it until tomorrow night when my usual slice of Wednesday girls are getting together! (And staying awake until then.)

Have you had a good Wednesday? Is the run up to Christmas fun for you or if one more person asks you if you've finished your Christmas shopping are you going to poke them? 

Could just be me. 

Looking for my festive spirit. Looking, looking, looking. Meanwhile, White Christmas. Yummy.

xxx

 

A slice of Wednesday: Another Lemon Slice

Adam does not have a sweet tooth in his head. (Pass him the olives and the fetta any time of day.)

But some weeks he'll look up from the laptop and say, just ever so slightly folornly, that slice looked nice. 

Because mostly it's made, photographed and out the door before he's even sniffed it. 

Not this one. Not because he's marvellous or because I think he'll particularly love this one, but because I whipped it together at 9am this morning and was pressing it into the pan at 9.15am when I needed to be walking out the door with it at 9.45am. 

This slice takes longer than half an hour to properly firm up. Just so you know. 

(I took Buena Vista Farm Biscotti instead.)

 

Suddenly there is a slice in the fridge. 

This is not, for me, a particularly good idea and I think I'll carry it to a neighbour tomorrow. Less a piece or two for Adam.

It's a lemony slice. I scribbled down a similar lime slice recipe from an old Better Homes and Garden's magazine as I sat with Henry at the Ear, Nose, Throat surgeon last week. I don't have limes on a tree though. It's another super quick one, with ingredients you can keep on hand for emergencies. 

 

(This is the endy bit which is usually the only bit Adman ever sees of a slice.)

 

Lemony Slice

INGREDIENTS

200g white chocolate

395g tin of condensed milk

250g packet Nice (or sweet) biscuits, crushed

1 cup flaked almonds

1 cup shredded coconut

zest and juice of 2 lemons

 

METHOD

Gently heat the chocolate and the condensed milk together in a big saucepan on the slove, stirring constantly, until the chocolate melts. 

Into this mix stir the crushed biscuits, the almonds, coconut and lemon juice and zest. Mix well.

Press into a greased, floured and paper-lined standard slice tin (approx 13 cm x 27 cm) and chill in fridge for at least an hour until firm.

 

It's sweet and sticky and lemony and coconutty and altogether marvellous. 

Sorry Adman, this one's leaving the house first thing in the morning. That or I'm going to be up a dress size by the weekend.

xxx

Slice of Wednesday: Apple Slice

 

I love apple slice. I judge a bakery on it's apple slice (after it passes the Vanilla Slice test, but that's another Wednesday.)

And you know what? I've never made it. Not once. I love Slice of Wednesday. It's a whole new world of baking action. 

I have eaten quite a lot of apple slice over the years though, and it's very straightforward, right? A crisp shortbready biscuit top and bottom and apple in between. Perfect in its simplicity.

I checked the Mayflower cookbook, and there was an apple slice but there seemed to be a lot of sugar in it. It's not supposed to be super sweet, this one. You want to appreciate that apple. 

I also happened to have a big pile of apples that were past their prime (due to Henry having a wobbly front tooth which apparently precludes him from eating more than one apple a day - we formerly had a cap on his number of apples per day at five.)

 

 

I also had Tilly up from 4.30am today with the (brief) chucking bug which hit Ivy on Monday. And then Henry up at 6am with the same thing. Hello, laundry. 

And so you see, I needed to make apple slice today. 

And here it is. 

 

 

Glorious. (If I may say so.) I have a ridiculous euphoria looking at this slice. NAILED IT. 

Of course the converse happens all the time. Nothing wrecks my day like a baking failure. If you hear me snap at my children, look no further than the flat inedible sourdough poking out of the chook bucket. Oh yes, sourdough and I. A battle of wills. 

But not today. Today was a high five the oven day. With a piece of apple slice in the fridge to celebrate.

 

APPLE SLICE

Ingredients:

2 cups plain/all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ cup sugar

125g butter, softened

1 egg, beaten

2 cups (approx) stewed apple (just apple, no sugar), cooled.

Method:
You can make this in a food processor if you have one: just whizz all ingredients together, give a bit of a knead then pop it into fridge for 5 mins, wrapped in cling wrap.

Or, sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, stir through the sugar, then mix in the butter with a fork until it looks breadcrumby. Add the egg. Knead well, until smooth then pop it into fridge for 5 mins, wrapped in cling wrap.

Break the dough in half and roll out the bottom slab as close to the size of your tin as you can. (I used a classic Australian slice tin - I think it's 27cm x 13cm). Your tin needs to be greased, floured and lined with baking paper - then press the dough into the bottom. Trim if needed.

Spread approx 2 cups of apple over. Then roll out the top and place it over the apple. 

Brush top with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 25 minutes on 180°C. Leave it in the tin until it's cold, then carefully lift out and slice up. 

Store in the fridge. 

DELICIOUS.

 

 

 

Plain stewed apple. Perfect for slices and babies (and recovering seven year old's with a wobbly tooth crisis.)

 

xxx

A slice of Wednesday

One of my long-time favourite blogs closed down recently and it really got me thinking.

About how much time we spend recording and revisiting, about what we're not doing while we're busy blogging, about what the motivation behind blogging is. You know. Light and easy stuff. 

It strikes me that blogging, particularly at high frequency, is something people do for a specific period of time, but is something pretty hard to sustain long term.

Some people do it - I seriously don't know how Soulemama manages fresh and crafty posts day after day while homeschooling and mothering five children. I love The Pioneer Woman but there is so much going on over there now I find it hard to know where to look. Loobylu is one of the best long-term bloggers around and she had a huge hiatus a couple of years back (and earlier this year too.) 

It feel weird when a favourite blog closes down, like a breakup you kind of weren't involved in. 

My very good (real life) friend Estelle had a blog that I loved. I was very sad when she abandoned ship and I live in hope that because she hasn't cancelled her typepad subscription therefore she might make a comeback. Estelle is involved in my very favourite custard recipe (we put together her mother's recipe and my mother's recipe and got nirvana.)

She's a marvellous foodie. 

And she sent me a slice recipe, before I started this slice thing here. I thought it sounded WEIRD. 

She admitted it sounded nuts too, but urged me to try it. 

So today I did.

She called it the most amazing nutty, brownie like cakey slicey thing EVA. (Direct quote).

We might call it "Estelle's Insane Slice".

And FAR OUT it's really good. And if you thought the Easy Slice was easy, try this. 

 

Estelle's Insane Slice

Ingredients:

1 cup crunchy peanut butter

¼ cup honey

1 egg lightly beaten

1 tblsp cocoa

Method:

Mix all ingredients together and pour into a greased and lined loaf tin (mine was 22cm by 11cm) and bake for 20 mins on 180degC.

Estelle: "I'm not joking, that's it." (Direct quote.)

Four ingredients. It takes approximately two minutes to make.

Next time I'll double it and put it into a slice tin. 

Insanely good.

(Did I say we'd do a healthy meusli bar slice this week? Er, how 'bout next week?)

So do we think there's a future in blogging? This uniquely public record of private worlds? Or is it a strange and short-lived snapshot of all these domestic lives all over the globe that people will um over in a hundred years time. They're going to look at this slice and go, peanut butter, honey, egg and cocoa? Those pre-apocalyptic Australians, they were insane. And far out they ate a lot of slices. 

xxx

A Slice of Wednesday

 

 Hello middle of the week. Hump day. Midway. SLICE day!!! HOORAY!

 

 

I made this one up.

It's OK, not drop dead to-die-for fabulous, but nice. A nice slice. Quick and easy. Kid-friendly (as long as they are not allergic to peanuts.)

It's not the prettiest looking thing, but I had excellent intentions of drizzling melted white chocolate over it which I completely ran out of time to do. (I snapped these shots surrounded by friends with sharp knives. Life in my hands, I tell you.)

 

 

It's appeal to me is that it's no-bake. Not because turning on the oven and throwing a pan in for fifteen minutes is a problem, but because the oven had something else cooking in it. 

This is a melt and mix. A lot like this one, but with the incredibly evil involvement of lard. 

Oh yes, lard. Obviously I was without the supervision of Adam-I-draw-the-line-at-lard. I bought some once about twelve years ago to roast potatoes with (like his Grandmother taught me) and he threw it in the bin. 

He said he didn't care how freaking awesome his grandmother's roast potatoes were, no lard in our house, please. Then he made some creaking sound that was supposed to be the sound of his arteries hardening. Hilarious. 

I was going to use it in a medieval pastry recipe last week (that I didn't get around to) and so I snuck it into the fridge. 

It does make this slice fudgy and delicious. However, using copha (like my earlier version) gives a slice more solidity and firmness. Probably better, in retrospect.

Nonetheless.

 

 No-bake chocolate and peanut slice

Ingredients:

75g lard

½ cup  coconut cream

1 tin (400g) condensed milk

1 packet Nice biscuits (or plain sweet biscuits)

½ cup cocoa

1 cup crushed peanuts

1 cup shredded coconut

Method:

Melt the lard in a largeish suacepan. Add the coconut cream and condensed milk and stir briskly until all combined. Crush the biscuits in a food processor till fine and stir into the wet mix. Stir in the cocoa, crushed nuts and coconut. 

Press into a slice tin (approx 13cm x 27cm) and refridgerate till firm.

Drizzle melted white chocolate over the top before cutting into bars, if inclined.

** creeeeeeeak **

xxx

P.S. How about a super healthy muesli bar slice next week?! Anyone?!

A Slice of Wednesday

Hello Wednesday lets-make-a-slice day! How I love you. 

Today, we're veering away from the sticky sweet condensed-milk-heavy fare of recent Wednesdays and attempting something more lunchbox friendly. 

White Chocolate and Cranberry Oat Slice.

 

 

I made it up based on the fact I had white chocolate and cranberries sitting around waiting to be made into biscotti, silly ingredients. Don't ever sit around my kitchen on a Wednesday thinking you're safe. One sniff and you're in a slice.

 

I surfed www.taste.com.au for five minutes and found this recipe which was based on a wet mix I liked the sound of: natural yoghurt, eggs and a small amount of oil. 

So I made this:

White Chocolate and Cranberry Oat Slice

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cranberries

100g chopped white chocolate (or choc bits would work)

¼ cup brown sugar

1 cup wholemeal flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup rolled oats

⅓ cup coconut

1 cup natural yoghurt

2 eggs

¼ cup vegetable oil

METHOD

In a big bowl mix cranberries, chocolate, sugar, flour, baking powder, oats and coconut. 

In a jug or small bowl whisk up the yoghurt (I used my plain homemade), eggs and oil. 

Mix the wet mix with your dry ingredients, all together, and pour into a greased and lined slice pan (I used a 18cm x 27cm).

Sprinkle over ⅓ cup oats and ⅓ cup flaked almonds, and bake for 20 mins on 200°C. 

 

It's not too crumbly and not too sweet with the occasional lovely hit of white chocolate. I thought this was yummy. 

Hope you like it. (Back to sticky next week?)

xxx

 

looking up

Well the BEST news of the week has to be that I found a (traumatised) Isa Brown hiding deep in an enormous bramble bush yesterday. She was very stuck. I put on gloves and with a saw and an axe (and a baby in a backpack!) I got her out. Hooray!

And in other spectacular news at exactly 2.45pm today my last missing Isa Brown wandered home. Who knows where she's been. She looked hungry. 

Which means my dog actually only killed the two that I found. GOOD news, hey?! (It's all relative.)

In other excellent news, I made the Easy Slice again. 

I made it for a gathering of kids, so I left out the nuts. And used Nice biscuits as instructed. Also put the butter in the bottom of the pan as suggested. Basically followed the recipe. I know. MIRACLE. And who knew, it really works. 

 

 

Oh my goodness this is a dangerous slice. 

 

It takes precisely five minutes to make and is pathologically more-ish. I in no way take responsibilty for your inability to give the slice away. 

So after delivering this (much improved) version of the slice and finally finding my kitchen bench for the first time this week under dishes and debris, Ivy had a nap and I found myself unrequired. Tilly at preschool. Henry at a kids holiday program at church. How about that then. 

So instead of folding washing or cleaning the bathroom or cooking dinner ahead of time or anything sensible, I took a favourite baby shirt and cut out a pattern.

 

 

And after cutting up one old baby wrap, we have this:

 

 

No it doesn't really fit. 

I'm not really a very good sewer, and I don't know what made me think freestyle was the way to go. 

 

Before I cut up the next baby wrap I might find a pattern.

 

It was such a glorious wrap though, as I was talking on the phone to my Mum I cut up all the remnants into "rags" - remember those?

 

Did your Mum ever do this to your hair to give you curls?

 

And low and behold, it doesn't fit the baby but it fits the four year old. Who was formerly known as Tilly but has been instructing everyone this week to call her Charlie. No, no reason.

 

She immediately declared she was the rainbow fairy.

Which she is. That marvellous Charlie. 

 

And did I ever precisely suggest you give the whole entire slice away?

That little end-y bit in the fridge will improve anyone's day. 

Things are looking up.

xxx

A slice of Wednesday (a day late)

Hi! Hello! Nice to see you!

Yep, sorry about the no-show. Remember what I said about being a daily blogger unless that day kicks my arse? Yesterday was a day. Far out. 

Dreadful headcold. Adam away working. Grouchy children. House a terrible mess. A promised afternoon outing with friends to an animal park which just felt like one long slog. Some days sail by, others you just feel like you never. stop. working. 

Then home to walk to hounds and I see feathers all over the driveway. I leave everyone in the car and walk around the back. I hear a chook in death throws. I see at least two cadavers. And it's not a fox. It's not a stray dog. It's one of my dogs. Escaped the yard somehow. About to end the life of another hen. 

I got the hen away (and she seems OK today). 

Four. Four hens dead. 

Which now brings us down to a laying flock of 14 (from 20). Not really enough to supply the Bikkies.

Not sure what to do. Our commercial laying flock, when we get it, will be protected from predators by electric fencing. Which will include our dogs, I guess. I'm a bit blue, to be honest. What a week. 

But today IS Thursday which means I owe you a slice! Here's yesterdays, given away while still warm. 

 

 

Which was kinda a mistake. Not the giving-away bit, the cutting while warm. You have to let this one set, otherwise it'll crumble everywhere. 

It's called the "Easy Slice" in the Mayflower Village Cookery Book. 

 

Not the most attractive! But super easy and quick. 

 

Oh, those sticky chewy caramelly edges!

 

Easy Slice

Recipe from Mayflower Village Cookery Book. 

1 pkt Nice biscuits (I used Arrowroot, 250g packet)

6 oz butter (this is approx 185g!)

1 pkt choc bits (my bag was 230g)

1 pkt walnut pieces (I used blanched almonds, 120g packet)

2 oz coconut (approx ¾ cup)

1 tin condensed milk (which is 395g)

Method:

Melt butter and pour into a slice tin. (I used an 18cm x 27cm tin). Crush biscuits and place in tin. Spread choc bits, then nut pieces then shredded coconut over. Pour tin of condensed milk over the lot and cook for 20 mins in a moderate oven (I set mine at 180C.)

I used dessicated coconut although the method mentions shredded. I think shredded would look better. I also did not follow the instructions and pour the butter into the tin first. I mixed the crushed biscuits with the butter and pressed into the tin. I wouldn't do this again. I think the butter would form a better base. I also didn't follow the instructions about the order of the choc bits, coconut and nuts. I think if you put the choc bits in first you'd up with a prettier, smoother top to your slice. 

[Edited note: please also see a revised version over here, made with Nice biscuits - much better, and melted butter into tin first. Also put choc bits on biscuit crumbs, then nuts (if using), then coconut, then condensed milk. Much better finished slice than the one pictured here.]

Pretty much if I'd had another packet of biscuits in the cupboard I would have made it again! In fact I might, and if I do I'll post another photo here. So much for from-scratch. I've never thrown away so many empty bags when making something!

I also think it would be nicer with peanuts, although the almonds worked well. 

I'd love to hear how it goes if you make it! Send me a photo! We could use yours instead!

 

And it's a slice that doesn't call for eggs. 

I firmly believe there is always, always an upside. 

xxx