I love snacking. As soon as I'm even slightly peckish I'm breaking into the biscuits to tide me over until the next meal time. It doesn't have to be biscuits either, crisps, chocolate, anything we have in the house isn't safe from my snack attacks. However, I know I'm not making healthy choices when I go for the cookies and sugar loaded treats. I don't think I'll be able to stop snacking so I decided I should try and have healthy snacks in the house instead. I also wanted to see what all the fuss was about 'Deliciously Ella'. I've heard her name all over the place, with people recommending her healthy recipes, which more importantly for me, are easy to make. One thing that annoys me about recipes is when I have to go and buy five random ingredients I've never heard of which I'll use a pinch of, and then it'll just be left in the cupboard for the next six months. So slightly warily I jumped on the the Deliciously Ella website. I was pretty pleased to see she had a whole section on snacks! As I'm a novice in the kitchen I decided to start nice and easy with the Apple and Raisin Oat bars.
The main thing that drew me to this recipe was that it only needed six ingredients, most I already had in the kitchen; oats, raisins, coconut oil, cinnamon and dried apple. The only ingredient I didn't have was rice syrup, but the recipe said honey would work just as well so I just switched over to the honey that's been sitting in our cupboard for over a year. Thank goodness honey doesn't go off!
Even for me this recipe was so simple. First you blend 2/3's of your raisins with the honey, cinnamon and melted coconut oil until it forms a paste.
Then add the oats, apple and rest of your raisins and mix together. Now here is where I went away from the recipe slightly, as they say to blend it together with your food processor. I only have a hand held blender and using this caused the oats to fly everywhere so I decided to play it safe and just mix it thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Then it's just a case of packing it down until a tin lined with grease proof paper.
Then pop it in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. I left mine for 20 minutes and the raisins on the top and some of the edges started to burn, so remember to check on it!
Once it's out the oven let it cool and then put it in the fridge to cool a bit more for 20 minutes or so. And then you can cut it up and enjoy!
I had my slice with a little fruit and a big glass of water because it was pretty dry! I think this could be because I used too many oats. Or maybe if I had blended it rather than just mixed it together it would have been less dry. Still it was a very easy recipe to follow and it does taste good. I will definitely make some again. I'm even tempted to try out some other recipes on the Deliciously Ella site. They have a range of categories online, and I might branch out and make some of the main meals too. Who knows maybe I'll even splash out and get one of the books (unless anyone wants to get me an early Christmas present).
For now though I'm going to enjoy my snacks in the garden whilst reading my new book The Pants of Perspective. It's by Anna McNuff who ran the length of New Zealand. I'm hoping it inspires me to restart my 0-5k running podcast - that way I have an excuse to snack more!
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