Frugal frivolities

Its nearly the end of the month, but as normal (well in this household anyway) we are bordering on the penniless..

So what have I been doing that makes this time a time of frivolities - well I have been baking.
Now as Bel normally has in her lunchbox a cereal bar, I have been making flapjacks.

Yesterday I made banana flapjacks which were so nice that they disappeared quickly ( and I only made a few due to lack of oats). These went down well with everyone - even Car. Last night at bed time she asked for another flap mummy, and then said in the same breath that bananas were yucky. I had to leave the room at this point as we hadn't told her that there were bananas in the mix and thought it was funny that she couldn't taste it.

The recipe I used is shown below:

• 40g/1 1/2oz butter
• 60g/2 1/2oz brown sugar
• 1tbsp golden syrup
• 225g/8oz porridge oats
• 2 small bananas

In a pan, melt butter, add sugar and golden syrup and stir well - or melt butter in a bowl in the microwave.
Mash bananas and mix into butter mix with  oats and spread into a greased baking tray approx 15cmx20cm/6"x8" . 
Flatten with the back of a spoon, bake at 200C/Gas 6 for 15-20 mins until slightly brown.

Cut into fingers and leave to cool.

Tonight I used a different recipe as we had run out of bananas!

The recipe I used was this one:

75g of butter or margarine
50 - 75g light brown sugar
1 tablespoon of golden syrup
175g of porridge oats.

I used the same principle as above but these cook at Gas 4 for 25 mins until evenly brown.

Now because I couldn't find the right size tin they came out a bit randomly:

They have been declared a success by Bel and as they were so easy to do- and possibly cheaper - I may make some next month to save buying the cereal bars.

After cooking these and putting the girls to bed, I am also making some cheese and bacon squares (for Bel's lunch) and am going to try and make some Danish type pastries (recipe of which was in this months Good Food magazine and can be found online here).

What do you think? Is my baking going to sustain us through until next Thursday? Who knows but at least I'll have some fun!


BNM