Baking up a storm

I say a storm because as I write this it’s come in cold, dark grey fluffy clouds have rolled in looking like they might bring some rain with them.


My kitchen looks like something wild and crazy has hit it as I baked liked crazy today. That’s the one thing I think when I bake is that hardest- cleaning up.


Are you like me, where you really have to be in the right mood to bake? Otherwise it all turns a bit sour because you’re not that into it.
 
I think I did well, only one thing didn’t turn out as I’d have hoped and that’s the muesli bars you see stacked up here on the right. I think I may have either cut them too early or they didn’t bake long enough (though the top was golden brown the underside wasn’t so well cooked) as they all sort crumbled to pieces. Next time I think I might chill them once they are cool before cutting, might make a difference. They taste great but sort of fall apart in your hands.


Next is the loaf of bread, I have a bread maker, now for the longest time every loaf was golden and delicious, then, I’m not sure what happened but I seemed to have lost my bread making touch as every loaf didn’t work. I’m concentrating on it now & its working with a lot of help and advice from my father in law who is the bread making wizard. I’m pleased it’s working because I like homemade bread –so do my boys and buying bread of this quality where it has seeds, grains and is wholemeal is not cheap.
 
The muffins are bran with added banana and diced prunes. I like to put one sweet thing in the boy’s lunches and I’ve never been one to put cookies in so last year was making orange coconut muffins but I wanted something healthier so made bran. They turned out nice and mar loves them already!
 
The little loaf is gluten free, dairy free, soy free banana bread. The smell of it cooking has you drooling, once out of the oven its beautiful warm with a herbal cup of tea. I cut this loaf up then froze it so if I forget to make more muffins I have something sweet and healthy to put in the boys lunches.
 
I also made raw energy balls and they turned out ok but the mixture didn’t really bind like I thought it would so was bit of a let-down in that respect but they are made from oats, coconut oil, seeds, peanut butter (was meant to use cocoa almond butter but couldn’t find any so used pics high quality peanut butter and cocoa) and coconut. You roll the mixture into balls and chill them.


 I decided to not put these in the boys lunches as I think they might sort or lose shape plus with being peanut butter I’d hate for a child to have a reaction so I’m keeping them at home for when the boys get in from school as a healthy protein filled snack that they can have alongside they’re green tea water (I’ve started putting a green tea bag in a jug of water and chilling it in the fridge and they really love it!!)
 
I also made some hummus today, I actually made more than I thought the recipe would make but that’s great because Kanye absolutely loves hummus so I’ll have plenty to put in his lunch!


I really enjoy creating new things and baking new recipes that are healthy and nutritious for the boys- I don’t always have the energy or time to do it and that’s when I get slack and buy packaged things. I want to try stop doing that so I’m going to keep baking quick recipes when I can and freeze them.
 

We had a yummy dinner tonight- also wanting to eat better foods rather than same sort of things over and over. This doesn’t always work though that’s the problem and I always feel let down when that happens but I guess it’s worth a shot, like tonight we had vegetarian sausages made from soybean- mar loved them, he ate 3 in fact then went on to eat all his salad!!!! He never does that! He’s not a big meat eater so where I can if there’s an option for him to eat something else that he likes then I think I’ll try it. If he never eats meat that’s fine, if he grows to like it fine but for now he doesn’t like it so I want to explore different things for him.