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Pecan Pie Date bars / make your own nakd/lunabars

July 6th, 2011 § 1 comment § permalink

If you don’t know what these are, go and buy one. And at the same time buy 2 x 500g packs of stoned dates (£1.34 from tesco each) and some pecans (£4.49 for 300g… ouch more than I remember) and then you can make 37 of your own (pretending you make them exactly 35g each) for £7.17 opposed to £26ish.

You can  make these way way cheaper by using cashews instead of pecans – I just way way prefer pecans. There are infinate variations, add other dried fruit, add cocoa, cinamin, spices, whatever you fancy. I think this would be a great project for little ones to help out with, such a fun texture to mash up and relatively mess free. And they are making food!

You will need -

A food processor
Dates (I use 1kg of dates per 300-400g of nuts)
Nuts (pecans are our favourite, cashews work equally well)
Any extra ingredients you want – cocoa powder, chocolate chips, dried fruit etc.
A willing taste tester always helps:

Chop the nuts in your food processor. You don’t want to grind them into dust, just into nice chunky pieces that should look something like this:

Then tip them into a bowl (use a large bowl to save on washing up later, one that you can fit everything into), and put all the dates in the food processor (you might have to do this in batches, depends on how powerful your processor is.
Blend/Pulse the dates until they are really mashed up, they should start sticking together into a ball. Often you will hear a really nasty sound while doing this and it is probably because there is a pit (stone) or two in your bag of dates. Usually best to stop processing and fish it out because it can scratch up your bowl pretty bad. The dates should eventually look something like this:

Next step is to grab handfuls of the dates and knead them into the chopped nuts. It’s a bit trial and error at first but you will quickly figure out the amount of nuts you can incorporate into the dates. I just use my hands and fold/knead lumps in. You don’t want to mix too many nuts in or else it will crumble when you make them into bars. At the same time you don’t want to put too few in or else it will just be a sticky date bar. Mine look something like this when they are finished:

Mmm attractive. Insert gross joke here. Once you have incorproated all the dates into the nuts or vice versa you want to start shaping them into bars. You can really make any size or shape that you want, depending on your needs. I tend to make my bars quite large, as Reuben loves these and would quite happily eat them all day if I let him. That way I can have one in my bag as an emergency meal…

I lay out a piece of clingfilm and roll a log in between my hands, then flatten it onto the clingfilm, and wrap it up:

Then the most important step – squash it really hard with a book:

And that’s it!

I store mine in the fridge, I think they would be fine unrefridgerated but I have no idea of their shelf life… after all they are just dates and nuts. Enjoy!

Knitting

June 2nd, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

So I’m getting quite addicted to this knitting buisness and picked up some patterns in France. Bad idea, they are so gorgeous and now I want to knit them all!! Small problem, I don’t remotely speak french and the patterns are… intense.

This is how they write increases etc

depuis le debut de l’ouvrage, augmenter de chaque cote au debut de chaque rg:
1 fois 3m.,
11 fois 2m. = 68m.

As far as I can tell, this translates in English to something like..

since the beginning of the work, increase each side at the beginning of each row:
3m 1 times.,
2m 11 times. = 68m.

Oh my god i totally worked it out.

[FRENCH]en coloure blue marine monter 18m
tricot 4 rgs au pt jersey end prendre le coloure  vert et continuer en tricotant au pt jersey end

en meme temps depuis le debut de l’ouvrage, augmenter de chaque cote au debut de chaque rg:1 fois 3m., 11 fois 2m. = 68m.

[ENGLISH]

Cast on 18 stitches in navy blue.
Knit 4 rows in stocking stitch then take the green color and continue knitting in  stocking stitch

then increase each side at the beginning of each row: first row has 3 stitches either side increase, then increase every row by 2 stitches either side (knit 11 rows).

Good times!

Liberty Love

April 5th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

liberty premium high dunks print d nike

pretty much in love with these liberty / nike collaboration premium high dunks… not sure if I would buy them myself though considering I’m against paying RRP fr anything and they will sell out… that and I don’t really need another pair of high tops

Sunday Snippets

March 28th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink


Cath Kidston mugs making me happyyyyy inside

baby R helping me fix my laptop keyboard (fixed!! more blogging action hopefully *should* be taking place as a direct result of this)

lots of happy hooking time has been taking place and baby R’s blankie is coming along very nicely!! so exciting!

the sun is starting to shine more and It’s lovely having my sister in law staying with us for a few months too xxxxxxx

Kourtney Kardashian reads Super Baby Food

March 22nd, 2011 § 2 comments § permalink

My TV watching since being pregnant has exponentially increased and I no longer think I can blame it on little R, I need to admit I am addicted…

Anyway Kourtney & Kim Take New York is my not so secret guilty pleasure – and Kourtney K is my favourite hollywood Mom for sure (see how I used american spelling there). Not only is she a super breastfeeding advocate – she has talked openly about her breast feeding experience and how sad it was for her to stop at 14 months – I spotted her reading one of my favourite baby books – Super Baby Food!

Kourtney Kardashian reads super baby food weaning book

I’ve had Super Baby Food since little R was born and it has been an invaluable resource, especially when we started weaning/eating solids around 6 months. Go buy it if you are pregnant or are weaning, it is a fab book. xx

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