Date Balls and Posh Slice

Date Balls 

You'll need

2 cups of roughly chopped dried dates
2/3 cup of water
8 T oat or rice bran
2 heaped T each of muesli or rolled oats, LSA, AND chopped seeds or nuts
1 t of vanilla or almond essence
(cocoa or dessicated coconut for coating)

bring the dates and the water to boil, stir well to mash the dates and leave to cool
add all the ingredients apart from the cocoa to the food processor and blitz until well blended, if it is too sticky add some more oat bran to get a firmer consistency

put the coconut or cocoa into a small bowl and drop in heaped teaspoons of the mixture. coat and roll in a ball...makes about 30 balls.

I've been making lots of soup this week to use up the never-ending supply of celery stalks we have (Twitch prefers the leaves!). One nice way has been to add chilli flakes and then puree the soup and add a large cup of cooked beans/chick peas/corn or peas for an unusual texture. This soup had just one soft beetroot, zucchini and celery but turned this delightful purple colour...home-made bread is always lovely...

Deezy's Posh Slice

The Royal Doulton side plate is one of 4 I bought on Ebay, they were made between 1923 and 1927 and are in mint condition

Deanne at the DTE forums shared this easy recipe recently,
 you'll need...

1 1/2 cups each of plain flour and rolled oats
1 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt

Blitz these quickly in the food processor and chop in 175gms of butter and a small egg.
Process until all the flour is moist and will form a lump when squeezed
Firmly press  2/3 of the mixture into a lined lamington tin
Spread 250gms of jam over the base and then sprinkle the remaining flour mixture over the jam, rather like when making a fruit crumble
Bake at 175C for about 40 minutes or until golden brown...

spread the jam on the base

sprinkle the remaining 1/3 of the flour mix over the top

It's quick, easy and delicious, most has gone in the freezer already!

I found this in the 'fridge recently....the last chunk of 2012's Christmas Cake and it still tasted lovely, the keeping capability  is quite amazing...

I'm finally over that cold and have been working in the garden every day, I'm really enjoying seeing it flourishing at last and have planted some gorgeous red geraniums around the place. The fly traps are working well, I've been gathering snails every day, drowning them in warm, soapy water and digging them into the soil and I've seen the first few of those wretched Cape Lilac caterpillars that ate much of one tree's foliage last year....they won't get a chance this year!!

Hope all is well with you,
Love from Sue
xxx