Yummy recipes! And other things that made me smile today.

Finn showed us he could walk today! He's been taking three or four steps by himself when no-one's looking for a few weeks now, but sat down everytime we've acknowledged it. Today he chose to walk about four steps across the kitchen towards Chloe and I, with a big proud grin on his face! I'll try to get an action shot soon, when he's a little more confident!

We cooked today, and cleaned the bathroom and did some washing too - a very domesticated kind of a day! Washing is just fun at the moment though, as Finn loves being in his swing so much! He loves playing with his Myriad train too, so even cleaning is getting easier - although he does keep posting the pieces into the washing basket, down the radiator, in the bath... I rescued a couple before they went in the toilet today... so I'm having to be very vigilant to make sure it isn't spoilt.

Anyway, we cooked such lovely things that I'm going to post our recipes - I always mean to take photos of food as they look fab on other people's blogs, and I finally remembered today! So we made stuffed peppers, and gorgeous chocolate flapjacks for afterwards.

Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes

You may notice that the word 'some' features a lot in this recipe! I don't know about quantities, I just use as much of each thing as I think we'll eat between us. For two adults, a baby and two spare portions for the baby to have later in the week (and none for his big sister, who hates mushrooms!), I used four peppers, two big tomatoes, one courgette and as many apricots and mushrooms as I could find. The rice is always guesswork!!

Chop onion and garlic and saute in olive oil in a large saucepan with some cumin and coriander. Add chopped mushrooms and a courgette, and some chopped dried apricots. Chop the tops off big tomatoes and scoop out the insides and stir those in too. Stir in the rice and then add stock or water slowly as the rice absorbs it.

Cut the peppers in half and when the rice is cooked, stuff the mixture into the pepper halves and tomatoes (you can put the tops back on these) and put some cheese on top if you don't need it to be vegan! Set the stuffed peppers and tomatoes into a roasting tin and pour in boiling water, up to about the middle of the tomatoes.

Roast at about 200 degrees for about 30 mins. Serve with salad and bread.

Chocolate flapjacks

All amounts are approximate!

125g butter
90g sugar – organic golden caster ideally
90g golden syrup
250g oats

Some chocolate! (Leftover Easter eggs in this case…)

Melt butter with syrup and sugar in a saucepan until all sugar has dissolved, then take off heat and stir in oats. You could add dried fruit here if you didn’t want to top with chocolate (which would be mad, as the chocolate topping is divine, but there’s no accounting for taste).

Press mixture into tin, either lined with greaseproof or well greased, flattening mixture down well. Cook for 15 mins at 175 degrees, then leave to cool in tin.

Melt chocolate, in bowl above pan of boiling water, and pour/spread it on top of the flapjack, let it cool then chill in the fridge for an hour before cutting.

I was amazed that it was easy to cut this into squares after chilling, and also amazed that it tasted so fantastic! Enjoy :-)

And another thing that makes me feel like summer's on the way: