Recipe: Honey-Cinnamon Sore-Throat Sweets

~ by Emi

Now, I don't know about you guys, but in our home, when one person catches a cold, you can pretty much guarantee that everyone else will eventually get it!

However, no one EVER gets ill as badly as my husband Stephen does. If ever there was a dictionary definition of 'man flu', his picture would be next to it. He sniffles, down-hearted on the sofa, troughing through large amounts of throats sweets that only seem to numb for a short while but don't seem to actually solve the underlying issues.

I decided that I was going to make him some special sweets for his throat, in the hopes that it would get rid of my gently weeping man-child. (Okay, so Stephen hasn't actually been *weeping*, but he hasn't been at his best!)

All you need for these is;

* honey
* cinnamon
* a silicon icecube tray
* butter
* greaseproof paper


Remember my post about toffee apples? It's a very similar process.

Get a saucepan and throw in about half a jar of honey, followed by a sprinkle of cinnamon. You could also add ginger too, or instead of the cinnamon if you liked, or omit them all together and have them as pure honey.

We're going to gently heat it to a rolling bubble until it reaches the 'hard-crack' stage.

Now, as most people don't own a sugar thermometer, so I'm going to teach you how to identify when your sugar has reached this stage.

Make sure you have a glass of cold water. Every so often, using a wooden spoon, drip a little of your honey mixture into the water. If you want your sweets to be more like boiled sweets, then heat until it immediately hardens and can be snapped when dropped in the water.

I wanted more chewy sweets though, so when you drop your honey mix in the water, you want it to harden, but also to have a tiny bit of pliability to it.

Grease a silicon icecube tray with butter and slowly, carefully fill each section with your mixture. You'll notice a couple of mine have lollysticks in, I wanted to test how they'd work as lollies. Not well, would be the answer to that.

If you've not used cinnamon, then your mixture will be deep golden and clear.

Leave your sweets to set at room temperature. Whilst they're setting, lightly butter some greaseproof paper and cut into wide strips.

When the sweets have set, pop them out of the tray and wrap each individual sweet in the greaseproof paper. This prevents them from sticking to one another in storage.

My husband now has a little tub of these in his work van to ease his sore throat! They are delicious, I have to say. (I even snaffled a few to keep for myself. I'm not ill. They just taste good.)

Remember, it is not advisable to give honey to children under the age of one, and small sweets can be a choking hazard for younger children, so use your common sense.

Recipe: Festive Rocky Road

~ by Kendal

Happy Monday Morning to you all! Although, to be honest, I'm sitting here in my PJs contemplating whether or not I have to get dressed at all today. If it wasn't for that pesky toddler ....

But you know what might ease that Monday morning feeling? A little bit of no-bake Festive Rocky Road! If you've never made Rocky Road before you might be surprised at just how easy it is. There is no baking involved whatsoever (good news for me - I'm a cooking sort of girl, baking just escapes me)

What makes this Rocky Road festive is the use of ginger biscuits instead of rich tea, which gives it a warming, slightly spiced taste that fits perfectly into these cold days and nights. If you don't like ginger, you can always just use rich tea, or a combination of half and half (I often do this if I don't want it to be too gingery)

This makes about 16 pieces, so yields a generous amount, and is great for having guests over or parties.

Ingredients

225g dark chocolate
75g of milk and white chocolate chips
125g of maltesers
75g of ginger biscuits (or rich tea)
100g of mini marshmallows
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
100g of unsalted butter
icing sugar to dust

How to

1. Break your dark chocolate up and place in a pot with the butter and the golden syrup. Melt on a low heat until it is perfectly smooth, then set aside. The butter and syrup makes this easy to melt without burning.

2. While this cools for ten minutes, put all your biscuits into a large bowl and break them up into small pieces using a rolling pin.

Add the maltesers, choc chops and mini marshmallows (or, if you can't find any, large ones cut up into quarters!)

3. Line an 8 by 8 inch baking tin with greaseproof paper. Pour the chocolate over the mixed up ingredients and stir very well, making sure it is completely covered and thoroughly mixed in together.

4. Add this to the baking tin, pat down so it is as solid as possible and put in the fridge for 2 hours. Lick the bowl. You won't be able to resist. You might get diabetes but it'll be worth it.

5. Cut up into smallish pieces (about 16) as it is very rich, dust with icing sugar and serve up!

Perfect for parties, dessert, or just a late night snack. Share begrudgingly :)

Recipe: Toffee Apples

 - By Emi

Firstly, let me apologise for this post being late. It should have been published on Monday, but you know how it is with children... Time gets away from you. The toddler needs another book read to him. The baby simply *has* to be snuggled again. That sort of thing.

Secondly, you are really going to love these!

Look how gorgeous they are!

I know you're simply dying to try these for yourself,, so lets begin!

Before we do though, this really is something to make FOR your children, as opposed to WITH your children. The sugar syrup we're going to make can give nasty, nasty burns if you're not careful with it, and we all know that hot drippy liquids and small, excitable children do not mix.


INGREDIENTS

8-ish small apples
450g sugar
4tbsp golden syrup
1tbsp white vinegar
100ml water
red food colouring (optional)


Boil the kettle, make yourself a cup of tea and pour the rest of the water into a bowl. Add the apples. After a few minutes, take the fruit out of the water and give them a rub with a clean tea towel or kitchen roll.

Apples can often have a waxy coating on them, and this gets rid of it. If you don't get the wax off them, you're going to have a tough time getting the toffee to cling to them. And no one wants that. We want toffee to cling to our apples like a co-dependent, overly attached girlfriend (5 points to the first person to 'get' that reference!).

Once you've washed them, we're going to put 450g of sugar, 4 tablespoons of golden syrup, 100ml water and 1 tablespoon of white vinegar into a pan. Warm it gently, stirring until all the sugar has dissolved.

Pre-sugar dissolving

Post-sugar dissolving

You'll now have a lovely pale golden syrup, happily bubbling away.

You're going to slowly heat your syrup, stirring continuously, until it reaches the 'hard crack' stage. Now, most people don't own a sugar thermometer, so I'm going to teach you how to identify when your sugar has reached this stage.

Make sure you have a glass of cold water. Every so often, using a wooden spoon, drip a little of your syrup into the water. If it immediately hardens and can be snapped, then it's at the right stage. If it is still able to be moulded with your fingertips and still soft, keep heating.

If you rush ahead and don't wait for the 'hard crack' stage, you're going to end up with gooey, sticky toffee apples. Gooey, sticky works brilliantly for toffee apple PUDDING, less so for toffee apples on sticks.

Once it's at the 'hard crack' stage, take it off the heat and stir in a little food colouring. We picked red for that authentic, fairground colour, but you could pick blue or green if you wished, or leave it untouched.

So, now we have delicious red sugar, we're going to stick skewers or chopsticks into our apples. Ru really enjoyed this bit, and I had to rescue several apples from being liberally skewered all over.

Spread a thin layer of butter over greaseproof paper. This really is super important, this step. If you miss out the butter, you will end up with little scraps of paper stuck to your apples, and no one likes a papery apple.

Tipping your saucepan slightly, use the chopstick and dip your apple in the syrup, making sure it is coated evenly. Hold it over the pan until it has stopped dripping, and then place on the greaseproof paper to set. Repeat until they're all covered.

 Oh, Mama.

Make sure you wait until they're completely set, otherwise the sticky toffee is going to glue your teeth together!

Now, you'll see that you're left with some syrup in your pan. We played with ours by dripping it onto buttered greaseproof paper. And then eating it. And then getting a massive sugar rush. And then a massive sugar come-down. And wishing we hadn't eaten so much. And then going back for more because it's just so darn good!

You can also turn this sugar syrup into nests too. You just need to turn a bowl upside down and tuck buttered greaseproof paper round it, then drizzling the syrup over it, allowing it to set and then removing the paper.

Stephen wants me to tell you that he took this picture and that he is very proud of it.

But there you have it. Delicious toffee apples, with the perfect crunch and perfect sweetness.

"Almost all wild apples are handsome.
They cannot be too gnarly and crabbed and rusty to look at.
The gnarliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eye."
~ Henry David Thoreau, 'Wild Apples'

Homemade Muesli

~by Kendal

A few years ago whilst I was living in London I went on a bit of a health kick after a particularly unhealthy period. I was incredibly busy doing a full time MA and teaching too, so I was always trying to find high energy healthy foods to eat. Enter oats. And all their terrific health inducing properties (like naturally boosting your milk supply if you are a breastfeeding Mama!) Not to mention, they gave me just the energy kick I was after without the crash that usually follows.

The only trouble is I didn’t like porridge much, so I started to try different kinds of muesli, and eventually settled on my own, tweaked, much loved muesli recipe which is still one of my favourite things to eat to this day.

There’s no actual baking or cooking required in this recipe, but it is so delicious and so nutritious that I really wanted to share it with you. It is usually my breakfast of choice and my favourite any-time-of-day pregnancy snack. In fact I’m thinking of making up jars of this as Yule gifts for friends and family.

There are 3 tips to making this muesli above and beyond delicious.

1. You must use organic dried apricots instead of ordinary dried apricots. The difference is very noticeable and changes the taste entirely.

2. Once everything is added, sprinkle a generous amount of cinnamon on top and give it a good mix. 

3. Always add some fresh fruit before serving. Nothing beats a combination of blueberries and chopped apples, so I urge you to start there.

Ingredients

Large bag of Organic Muesli mix or Organic jumbo oats

Bag of brazil nuts

Bag of seed mix ( I use an omega 3 seed mix)

Bag of dried, organic apricots

Large sprinkle of cinnamon

Chopped up apples and blueberries (or fruit of your choice)

Milk/soy milk

(I usually get all of these from my local Holland & Barrett)

How to

I mix up a large batch in one go because it’s so tasty and so healthy I want to eat this all the time.

Put all your oats/muesli flakes into a large jar. Chop up the brazil nuts and cut the dried apricots into little bits. (You can also use any combination of other nuts or dried fruit, but this is the yummiest combination I've found yet). Add in all the seeds. Give it a good mix.

When ready to serve, add your milk and leave it to steep for a few minutes, which makes everything get a little soft. Then add your blueberries, chopped apples and cinammon, and give it a good mix.

Enjoy!

Then enjoy again, later. And later still. Yummy and super good for you!

***

(If you have any left over oats, you can always use them as an amazing facial scrub - Just put some in a bowl, add a little hot water, mix up and then slather all over your face. Messy and icky but fun. Rub in gently then rinse off. Follow up by slathering some honey all over your face and leaving it there for half an hour and you will have the most glowing, soft, radiant skin you can imagine!)

Recipe - Leek, Potato and Bacon Soup

~by Emi

With all the rain that seems to be dampening everyone's spirits, it seems like the perfect time to share a really uber yummy soup recipe!

Not only is it really filling, it's bloody delicious and uses up the seasonal vegetables that we get in our weekly veg box (courtesy of a local grocers).

To make this soup for yourself, you will need the following...

*a pack of bacon (I use smoked because I'm wild like that.)
*1 onion
*2 leeks
*3 or 4 big potatoes
*1.5l vegetable stock
*140mls double cream

First of all, chop up your bacon and onion and fry it up with a knob of butter till the bacon is starting to brown... It will smell divine, and you will probably find yourself picking bits out and eating them.

Next, chop up your potatoes and leeks, throwing them in the pan with the bacon once the bacon is cooked. I was convinced that I didn't like leeks (much to Kendal's dismay when she wanted to make me chicken and leek pie), but it turns out after using them in this recipe, I *DO* like them! Who'da thunk?

At this point, if you have cats, they may well be harassing you for the fat you cut off the bacon. Also at this point, if you're a soft touch like myself, you will give in to the afore-mentioned harassment.

You, Faithful Reader, will notice I have mentioned a cat in every single recipe I've done so far. This may seem pretty odd to you, but I literally CANNOT cook without at least one of our four felines joining me in the kitchen to tell me that they've never been fed *ever*, that they're starving to death and demanding I share with them.

Our resident OAP lady, Harry, especially enjoyed her treat...

After five or so minutes frying everything together, throw in your hot stock and simmer for 20 minutes.

It's worth transferring everything to a BIG pot now, behold my enormous stock pot!

After simmering, use a blender to whizz it up. We have a stick blender and just do it in the pan. Once it's smooth, add the cream, stir it all in and serve with crusty bread and garlic butter.

Your soup won't look as pale as mine, because I put in double the amount of cream by accident. It still tasted immensely wonderful though.

This is only the second time I've ever made this, but it is so easy, so filling and comes recommended by my lovely friend Emma, who ate TWO bowlfuls the first time I made it (compliment indeed!).

You could also add a tin of chickpeas or other pulses to bulk it out, add extra cream or stock, and I have plans to make a variation of this with gammon or maybe left-over roast chicken. I think the basic soup would make a great creamy chicken soup, swapping out the bacon for chicken and adding in mushrooms.

So, get cooking and many warm, toasty wishes to you on this grey day.

Emi, x

Nutella and Banana Turnovers

~by Kendal

These are very tasty, very quick to make and can be thrown together last minute. I think I first found the recipe on Pinterest, but I’ve made them so often that I’ve modified them to suit my tastes.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures, but Blogger is not my friend today!)

Ingredients

1 block of Puff Pastry or Ready Rolled Pastry Sheet

1 jar of Nutella

1-2 bananas

Icing Sugar

Egg or Milk to glaze

How to:

1. Preheat your Oven to Gas Mark 7/220 C. Cover a baking tray with greaseproof paper and use a little butter to grease. Chop your banana into thin slices. I find that one usually does me, but you may want to use more if you *really* love bananas

2. Flour a surface, and either roll your block out until it is a fairly thin rectangle, or simply unroll your pre-rolled sheet! Cut your rectangle into 6 squares. (There will be a little pastry left over which you could always make into a 7^th mini turnover...or give to your child to play with/eat...)

3. Leaving about 1/2inch border around each square, spread a layer of nutella over each square. You don’t need to use too much as it is super sweet. Cover one diaganol half in banana slices, making sure you leave that ½ border untouched. Repeat with all squares!

4. Now, fold each square over, from one point to another, making a turnover and enclosing the banana slices on the bottom half. Press the sides together. A little nutella may squeeze out the sides but this is okay. Using a fork, press the sides down further, giving them a lovely ribbed finish.

5. Now, using one egg mixed with a tablespoon of water, glaze each turnover and transfer them carefully to the baking tray. Place in the oven for around 15 mins. Keep an eye on them as obviously all ovens vary and you don’t want them to burn.

6. Take them out and let them cool on a wire rack. Once cooled a little, sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy with your Littles. (Also very yummy with ice cream)

These work really well with Nutella and Marshmallows too, and also as teeny-tiny turnovers for birthday parties etc!

Easy-Peasy, (Almost) Blackberry Jam

~by Emi

The past few days I have been forced to admit that Autumn is well and truly bearing down on us, which makes me a little sad. I'm always sad to say goodbye to the summer warmth, but also look forward to celebrating Pagan festivals with my family, such as the harvest themed Mabon, and then Halloween, or Samhain as we call it, leading in to the wonderful Winter festivals of Yule and Imbolc.

Autumn brings forth so much for us to share, apples, corn, elderberries... as well as my favourite...

Blackberries!

So today, I am going to share with you my very easy jam recipe!

I was always put off making jam in the past, worried about sugar thermometers and pectin and sieving and all those other things that can make jam-making more than a little daunting.

After posting on a wonderful parenting forum that I am part of, and several tries, I now have a standard recipe for making jam which tastes delicious and doesn't take all day to make.

First of all, you need to head out and pick some blackberries. We headed out to our local park, Ru on his wooden balance bike, Pixie settled in the mei-tai on Steve, and me, basket in hand.

See the basket? In my hand. Told you.

Obviously, you will need a Small Boy to supervise and yell at you.

But eventually, even the Small Boy got off his bike to help me gather the fruit...



Or alternatively, you could just buy them, which would be the easier option!

Before we begin the jam-fest, I'd like to point out that this isn't an exact science. In all honesty, it's barely even a recipe at all. More a delicious, gooey, jammy, sticky mess.

The first step is THE most important.

Check Your Berries For Bugs!

For the love of holy giant parsnips, please take out the bug-riddled berries.

No one wants to find a creepy-crawly in their jam.

Put your blackberries in a bowl, along with whatever other fruit you want to add. In this instance, we didn't have enough blackberries, so added a chopped apple and a nectarine. You could easily add strawberries, raspberries, plums, cherries, whatever you like.

Now take a good look at how much fruit you have in that there bowl. Remember that image.

Pop your fruit into a big pan with a tablespoon-ish of water and set on a medium-heat.

Then, remember that image of the fruit in the bowl? Recall it now, because you're going to add about the same amount of caster sugar to the bowl as there was fruit.

I did say that it wasn't an exact science.

Check on your fruit. Keep stirring. I love watching the deep red from the blackberries bleed into the flesh of the apple chunks. Very pretty.

Eventually, your softer fruit will start to break down. If you didn't put apple in your jam, then you can add your sugar now. If you *did* put apple in there, give it a couple more minutes until the apple pieces start to soften, then add the sugar.

Just keep stirring everything, keeping the jam on a medium-ish heat (or higher, if you're impatient), until it's a lovely, rich, deep, syrupy goop. Squeeze in the juice of one lemon, and stir up again. Throw in a little cinnamon or ginger if you want. You don't have to. Just go with the flow. It's fine. This is a fluid recipe.

We are a jam-with-bits kinda family, but if you're not that way inclined, this is the bit where (I'd presume) you'd sieve it. I can't tell you about the logistics of this because I've never done it.

You'll need a jar to put your jam in, I used one of my beloved Kilner jars but you can simply reuse an old jam or peanut butter jar. It'll need to be sterilised, so you can either put it in a hot wash in the dishwasher, or boil it in a pan with lots of water. If that seems like a lot of trouble, at least run the hot tap really hot and let it fill up the jar a few times.

I usually wait until the jam mixture looks quite thick, and then pour it CAREFULLY BECAUSE THIS STUFF IS AS HOT AS RYAN GOSLING.

Leave your jam to cool completely and then spread it over something bread-based. Or cake-based. Or just eat it off the spoon.

And there you have it.

Easy-Peasy, (Almost) Blackberry Jam.

What better way is there to celebrate Autumn than this?

"No man can taste the fruits of Autumn
while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of Spring."~ Samuel Johnson

Warm Couscous and Halloumi Salad

~by Kendal

It's Saturday and I have a cinema date with my wife (Emi) later. So I thought I would make something easy, quick and yet very tasty for dinner.

It has been *hot* today. And on hot days I am always looking for tasty salads. I came across this cous cous salad recently at my friend Camilla's house and fell in love with it. Couscous? Halloumi? Nuts? What more could I ask for?

So here it is! Warm Couscous and Halloumi Salad - perfect for these late summer days.

Ingredients

250g Couscous
1 pack of Halloumi
2 Peppers
Large handful of Brazil Nuts
2 cloves of Garlic
Boullion Stock  -approx 1 pint

Olive Oil
Soy Sauce
Lemon
Salt and Pepper to taste

How to

1. First of all, make your couscous. A chef once gave me a good tip on how to make couscous taste very 'golden' - melt a little butter in a pan and coat the couscous in that before adding your water or stock. I always use Boullion just to give the cous cous a little more taste. Once the butter has coated all the couscous, add your stock and let simmer for a minute or two and then let the couscous rest, giving it a good stir.

2. Chop up your peppers into small bits. I used roughly 2, although Ava kept stealing sizable chunks as  I was cutting, and running off to the garden, so I can't be too sure.

3. Chop up your Brazil nuts roughly into slices. You can use any kind of nuts and seeds work really well too, but I happen to love Brazil nuts. Chop up your garlic into small peices (it works better to chop rather than crush the garlic in this salad)

4. Put everything - couscous, peppers, garlic, nuts, into a bowl and give it a good mix. Add a good dash of olive oil and soy sauce (I like to use about half a bottle...I love soy sauce!), and squeeze half a lemon in too. A small sprinkle of salt and a good dash of pepper and then give it a very good stir.

5. Chop your Halloumi up into thin slices and add to a pot or pan. Dry fry it (the juices from the Halloumi mean you don't require any oil) and keep stirring so it doesn't stick to the bottom. The Halloumi will start to break up and eventually will start to resemble scrambled eggs. Once all the 'bits' look brown and suitably 'fried', it's ready to go, so you can add to your cous cous. And you're done!

I love this easy dish because you can basically add whatever you want to add. We like to eat ours warm but it's lovely cold too. It works well with different chopped up veg, with roasted tomatoes, and with almost any variety of seed or nut. It's healthy, it's fast, and it makes a lovely accompaniment to almost anything (we had ours with organic sirloin steak...very yum!)

And, it tastes good the next day, freshened up with a little more olive oil and soy sauce. Or if you can't wait, it also makes a good late night, post-cinema-date snack :)

Lactation Cookies

~by Emi

Well, it's Monday. And a perfect day for cookies.

Actually, I am convinced that is it always the perfect day for cookies.

Anyway...

Good morning! Rise and shine, campers! Time to get yourself into your kitchen and make some delicious lactation cookies! The first Monday of every month I, Emi, will be regaling you with my kitchen-based exploits in the pursuit of a meal good enough to share with you all.

This week just so happens to be Global Breastfeeding Week, and these lactation cookies are the perfect, delicious way to boost your milk production. If you're a breastfeeding Mama. Otherwise they're just delicious cookies with odd ingredients.

I first came across these cookies last September after my daughter, Pixie, was born. We had the usual visitors, bringing baby clothes and little toys and flowers, but what I was *really* waiting for was two very special friends of ours, David and Sarah.

There is a very good reason for this. They give the *best* presents. (Not *just* the presents, they're also kind, sweet, great company and so on.) Now, I'm not a materialistic person, but everyone loves presents. I especially love presents when they are as thoughtful and kind as the ones this couple gives.

Their baby gift to us for Ru's birth was to FILL our freezer with nutritious, delicious, home-made food so we wouldn't have to cook in the days after our son's arrival. Stephen and I will still sit back on occasion and say "Hey, remember those sweet and sour lentils and the cowboy chilli that David and Sarah made? *Man*, they were tasty."

Needless to say, they came up trumps once again with gifts after Pixie was born.

They arrived with little gifts, including a gorgeous handmade felted ball (quickly claimed by the cats), and cookies. And a recipe to make the cookies.

You see, these lactation cookies contain ingredients known as galactagogues. These are substances that promote milk-production in humans (and other animals). The three used in these cookies are flax (in the flaxseed meal), oats, and brewer's yeast. Other galactagogues include asparagus, fennel, and quinoa. There are none of these in the cookies. That would just be weird.

So, enough talking, let's get baking!

You will need the following ingredients!

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar (brown, white, golden, mixture, doesn't matter)

4 tbsp water

2 tbsp flaxseed meal *

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 cups oats

2 tbsp brewer's yeast *

(optional: 1 cup of your choice of extras! Eg. chocolate chips, raisins, mixed peel etc + cinnamon/ginger/a little honey for taste)

*these can both be bought in most health food stores

1. Preheat oven to 190*C (GM 5).

2. Put flaxseed meal into the water to soak for 2-5 minutes. It is going to look like a gooey mess, that's ok. Do not be alarmed.

3. Cream the butter and sugar together. (My husband said I should have put in a photo of the creaming, but I'm guessing most of you know how to use a handmixer...) I had a sneaky lick of the butter spoon. I love butter.

4. Add the eggs, flaxseed meal/water mix, and vanilla. Mix up. I'm lucky, the same Sarah who gave me the cookies recipe *also* gave me homemade vanilla essence as a Yule gift!

5. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix.

6. Add the oats, chocolate chips/raisins, spices if using and brewer's yeast. Mix.

Really, this is all pretty simple and easy to change up depending on what you have in. This time round, I had less flaxseed meal (I ran out), white chocolate chips and extra butter. I have no excuse for the extra butter other than the fact that I was drinking wine whilst I made these on Sunday evening.

Here I am, drinking wine.

7. Scoop onto baking sheet, I usually use a big spoon and just dump them on the greaseproof paper pretty haphazardly, but I made an effort for the purposes of the blog.

8. Bake for 8-12 minutes. Or longer. Or shorter. Depends on your oven. And how well-done you like your cookies. And how big your scoops of dough were.

An optional ninth step is to amuse yourself whilst waiting for the cookies to bake. Personally, I kept checking on them, worried that they'd merge in to one giant cookie, took Myspace-esque photos of me, my husband and Pixie...

 

And fed some leftover dough to my youngest cat. I don't *think* it will cause spontaneous lactation in cats, but Steve has told me if we find tiny kitty-milk trails in the morning that I have to clean it up.

9. When the cookies look kind-of-sort-of browned on top, take them out, and then eat them. Store any uneaten ones in an air-tight container.

A batch usually doesn't last long in my home, as I have a hungry husband, a toddler, a baby and four cats that all love cookies as much as me. I do try and keep them for myself, hide away in the kitchen, greedily, secretly stuffing cookies into my craw, but it's like Ru has a sixth sense for knowing when *I* am eating something that he is *not* eating. (I'm also well aware that cats are not supposed to eat cookies, but I have tried telling them that but they don't listen. Can only assume that I speak very bad 'Meow'.)

All in all, these cookies are full of good stuff, are easy to bake and if they boost my milk production too, then I am all for them.

And they are all for me.

Make your own.

Emi, x

"Om nom nom nomnom nom nomnom."

~ Me