Lamb Rogan Josh

This was beautiful, one of the best curries I've made in a while, all credit to Neven Maguire. You'll find this recipe on the RTE web site.
I especially liked the added spices to the basmati rice. The photo would be better but the troops ate through it too quickly!

Buckwheat Pancakes

These are the real deal. Okay they're gluten-free but these win hands down over the wheat variety. In France, buckwheat is traditionally used for crepes, especially savory ones.

I can't claim any credit here. David Lebovitz, an American chef living in Paris hosts an excellent site (try his tarte au citron) provides the recipe.

I used Doves Farm Buckwheat flour. Buckwheat is actually made from the seed of buckwheat plant, a close relative of Rhubarb. And from Doves Farm:

"The specific characteristics of buckwheat proteins, and the relative proportions of its amino acids, make buckwheat the unsurpassed cholesterol-lowering food studied to date.

Compared with true grains, buckwheat is high in minerals: especially zinc, copper, and manganese.

Healthier fat profile. Unlike true grains, buckwheat’s low fat content is skewed toward monounsaturated fatty acids—the type that makes olive oil so heart-healthful."

Gluten-free bran bread

Ingredients

• 600g Tritamyl flour (gluten-free flour)
• 325g soya bran
• 150g brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 100ml sundried tomato pesto
• 1L buttermilk
• 2 tsp bread soda
• 2 tsp Xanthan gum (if freezing)

Direction

1. Preheat oven to 180C and lightly grease a loaf tin.
2. Place all ingredients into a bowl and combine well together.
3. Bak bread for 45min to 1 hour or until it sounds hollow when tapped.
4. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
5. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the top while cooling.
6. Allow to fully cool before cutting.

Sundried Tomato Pesto

• 6oz semi-sundried tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 8 basil leaves
• 200ml extra virgin olive oil

Place ingredients in a food blender and blend for 2 min, season and set aside.

Gluten Free Bread

I think this recipe originates from the kitchen of Nevin Maguire and if so, it is very much appreciated. This makes 1 loaf of gluten-free bread.


Ingredients 

• 7g sachet dried yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 400g gluten free flour (I use Bob's Red Mill or Dove's Farm)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 50g milk powder
• 1 tbsp xanthan gum
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 60ml oil
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Direction

1. Lightly grease a 22 x 5 x 5.5 cm loaf tin. Place the yeast, sugar and 440ml warm water in a small bowl and stir well.
2. Leave in a warm place for 10 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface. The mixture should be frothy and slightly increased in volume.
3. Sift the flour, salt, milk powder and xanthan gum into a large bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture, egg and oil. Using a wooden spoon, stir together well until it forms a soft moist mixture. Beat for 1 minutes.
4. Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and smooth the surface with moist hands. Sprinkle with sesame seeds over the top.
5. Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for 1 hour or until risen to the top of the tin.
6. Place in a preheated oven at 190C/Gas 5. Bake the bread for 40-45 minutes or until it is golden and sounds hollow when tapped. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool. Allow the bread to cool completely before cutting.

Apple & Almond Pudding Cake

Almond and Apple (or Pear) tart

Ingredients

• 150g butter, softened
• 80g caster sugar
• 2 med eggs
• 1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
• 75g white or wholemeal self-raising flour
• 75g ground almonds

For apples:

• 4 dessert apples
• 25g butter
• 1 heaped tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

This looks nice when done and I'm a sucker for any dessert with apple. Having only 75g flour also helps to minimise the possible downside to using gf flour. Don't forget maybe 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp baking soda to make any plain flour into self-raising. I also added some xanthum gum.

Directions

1. Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin
2. Peel, core and cut apples into 12 wedges. Melt 25g butter in pan and add sugar until mixture bubbles, then add apples. Sprinkle the cinnamon if using and cook on medium for 5 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
4. Beat butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
5. Break in an egg and beat, followed by 2nd egg and almond extract, if using. Add a spoonful of the flour between the eggs to help binding
6. Scrape the mixture into the cake tin and place the apples around the top.
7. Bake at 170C for 45min until skewer comes out clean.
8. Serve warm with cream, custard or Greek yoghurt. Goes well when cold with tea.

Altogether I estimate about 275g CHO so if you can stretch it to 12 slices, then you're looking at 22g CHO. Pity it tastes so good with custard!

Lemon Trickle Cake

Another great Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall recipe though one found in other places. This we made with Bob's Red Mill gluten-free baking flour. You can find it occasionally at Tesco or at iHerb.com (state-side but ship to ROI). It's a reliable blend of various gf flours and well worth the (slightly crazy) price.
If you're using plain baking flour, be sure to add some gf baking powder and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate).
For this quantity of flour, I used 1 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of baking soda. I also added some Xanthum gum to help with structure (about 1/2 tsp).

Ingredients (serves 10 generously)

• 175g butter, softened
• 125g caster sugar
• finely grated zest of 3 lemons
• 3 med eggs
• 175g self-raising flour
• pinch of sea salt
• splash of milk (optional)
• 80g icing sugar
• some lemon juice

Directions

1. Put butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat for 10 minutes with Kitchenaid or other electric blender - 5 min will do but 10 better.
2. Add zest and eggs, one  at a time and with a spoonful of flour in between to help binding
3. Sift remaining flour and salt into blow and fold. Add a little milk if mixture doesn't drop easily from spoon.
4. Spoon into loaf tin (I used 2lb, fitted comfortably, though non-gf might rise more) and smooth top. Don't forget to line with parchment paper.
5. Bake at 170C for 40-45 minutes.
6. When done, mix icing sugar and enough lemon juice make pliable and drizzle over cake in the loaf tin. First though, make plenty of 'holes' in the cake with a skewer to let the icing soak in well.
7. Leave into tin until cool, then turn out and slice.

By my reckoning, a decent slice weighs in at 30g CHO but go very light on the icing sugar and that can be nearer to 20g.

Panna Cotta with Elderflower cordial

Panna Cotta

Panna Cotta has what I call great 'bang per (carb)buck' - at around 5g carb per serving, these are (potential) nirvana to pwds.

Okay, there's the usual issue around fat, but let's park that for now. These are courtesy of Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall.

Ingredients (serves 6 small ramekins)

• 100ml whole milk
• 250ml double cream
• 20g caster sugar
• 2 tbsp elderflower cordial
• 1 sachet of gelatine or 2-3 gelatine leaves
• 150ml plain yoghurt

Direction

1. Bring the milk, cream, sugar and cordial to near-boil in a saucepan.
2. Follow directions for gelatine (soak in 5tbsp of cold water) and add to cream mixture.
3. Stir until dissolved and leave to cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.
4. Once cooled, add the yoghurt and pour into ramekins and cool in fridge for 4 hours.

Thai Yellow Chicken Curry

This was a complete surprise. I came across this recipe after buying a couple of popular cook books (Jamie Oliver & Co.) and this was the one that wowed everyone. I've been playing about with curries and the like for a while and found honestly that all the spice grinding and exotic ingredients didn't pack the punch I'd like given the time investment. This turned that on its head - and it's from one of our own, Nevin Maguire.
It was beautiful - fragrant, stunning yellow colour, just the right amount of 'zing', wonderful with a light salad. I used chicken instead of monkfish (think the paste would overwhelm even monkfish).
No photos this time around - went too quick!

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breast fillets, though I think thighs would be better
• jasmine rice - we used good basmati.
• fresh coriander - always the best but does anyone know how to keep the fresh stuff alive!

Curry Sauce

• 2 shallots, peeled and chopped
• 2 cm ginger or galangal, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 lemongrass stalk, outer leaves removed and finely chopped - I used the jarred variety for the first time and it lacked none of the sweet fragance - and it was there when I needed it!
• grated rind and juice of 1 lime - I only had a lemon and worked fine
• 1 tbsp Thai fish sauce (nam pla) or light soy sauce (gf) - guess you could try a little anchovy essence if really stuck
• 2 yellow or green chilies, thinly sliced, extra to garnish - we toned it down by using a single red chili (again jarred) and wasn't missed
• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced, extra to garnish
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• ½ tsp turmeric
• 400ml can coconut milk - I used a single sachet of dried coconut milk, plenty
• 600ml (1 pint) chicken or vegetable stock (watch if following GF)
• salt & freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. To make the yellow curry paste, place the shallots in a mini-blender, with the ginger, lemongrass, lime rind and juice, Thai fish sauce (or soy sauce), chilies, garlic, spring onion, coriander, mustard seeds, and turmeric. Blend with enough of the coconut milk to make a paste. If you don't have a mini-blender, use a pestle and mortar. 
2. Fry off the chicken in a pan to give it some colour and remove. 
3. Transfer paste to the saucepan with a lid and cook over medium heat for 1 minute, stirring. Pour in the stock and the rest of the coconut milk, turn up the heat and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes until fragrant. Season generously. 
4. Add the chicken back to the pan and simmer for a few minutes. 
5. Serve with jasmine/basmati rice with chili and chopped coriander to garnish.

Moist Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake

Often, I find gluten-free cakes can tend towards being a bit dry - this definitely isn't. It's a carrot cake based on a BBC recipe. I find the BBC recipes to be really good in general and this is no exception. I've made some changes though - it's a little too oily and as usual there's too much sugar. Here's what went down well at ours!

• 120g light muscovado sugar - I reduced this a lot (from 175g) and plenty sweet
• 125ml sunflower oil - rapeseed oil would be lighter & I reduced from 175ml
• 3 large eggs , lightly beaten 
• 140g grated carrots (about 3 medium, though you can squeeze in a little more) 
• 100g raisins grated 
• zest of 1 large orange 
• 175g self-raising flour - I used Dove's Farm GF plain white and wholemeal flours. I added a tsp of baking powder as raising agent. I mostly used the wholemeal and it gave a nice colour.
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (you might want a little less though it does lower glucose levels!)
• ½ tsp grated nutmeg (freshly grated will give you the best flavour)

For the icing you can go with cream cheese or the following:

• 120g icing sugar 
• 1½-2 tbsp orange juice

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Oil and line the base and sides of an 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment.
2. Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind. 
3. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients - when everything is evenly amalgamated stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny. 
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point.) 
5. Beat together the frosting ingredients in a small bowl until smooth - you want the icing about as runny as single cream. Set the cake on a serving plate and boldly drizzle the icing back and forth in diagonal lines over the top, letting it drip down the sides.

One of the best received and easy cakes we've made in a while. Estimating the carbs is a little tricky but I think 20g CHO per slice was our best guesstimate, with 15 slices in the above recipe - well worth it!

Lemon & Lime Sponge

We had a handful of lemons and limes handy and the oven was on so this was quickly thrown together. The kids had drained eggs earlier to paint them so baking was on the agenda anyhow.

Ingredients

• 50g butter
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1 lime, zested
• 50ml lemon juice
• 50ml lime juice
• 3 eggs, separated
• 50g plain flour (I used Odlums Tritamyl White Bread Mix)
• 250ml milk

Directions

1. Heat oven to 160C (fan). Beat butter, sugar and lemon and lime zest together in a mixer. Add juices, egg yolks, flour and milk one by one to make a smooth batter. Pour into a large bowl.
2. Whisk egg whites until firm - fold into the batter. Pour into oven-proof dish and put in a baking tray half filled with hot water. Bake for 25-30 minutes until lightly browned and set.

This reminds me of Jamie Oliver’s dish, same deal. Nice easy dessert that’s easy for the kids to mess with making.

Carb count isn’t great – I reckon 8-10 portions at about 20-17g CHO apiece. I might try reducing the sugar further next time but with those lemons & limes, it could push it too far. On the up side, the Odlums Tritamyl flour worked well – though it’s a small player in this. Doves Farm still have my vote.

Verdict: darn good considering the easy of making this.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Curiously for a blog on diabetes, you'd think that we do nothing but bake sweet things. Considering the diet constraints, it's more about proving that it's possible than the actual eating part. Anyway, there's always exercise to burn through the glucose and make room for more.

This recipe basically from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall so the solicitors will know who to represent. I think we used the Doves Farm gluten-free plain flour here and thankfully it performed really well - these are seriously nice biscuits (ok, cookies) that go nice and crispy and strangely lasted well (well, they were gone in 4 days and just as crispy by then). They're not gooey in the middle if that's your thing but plenty chocolaty none-the-less. I took the usual 60% of the recommend sugar and it wasn’t missed.

Ingredients

• 125g unsalted butter
• 60g caster sugar
• 50g soft light brown sugar
• 1 medium egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 150g plain flour (Doves Farm Gluten-free plain flour)
• ½ tsp baking powder (Barkat gf)
• Pinch of salt
• 100g dark chocolate, chopped into smallish chunks

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C and line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment.
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Put both sugars into a mixing bowl, pour in the melted butter and beat well with a wooden spoon. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl and stir them in, then add the chocolate. It’s somewhat sloppy at this point.
3. Drop heaped teaspoons of the mixture on to the baking sheets, leaving a good 4cm between them as they really spread out. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the cookies are turning pale golden brown.
4. Remove from the oven and leave on the baking sheets for a couple of minutes to firm up. Then carefully lift the baking parchment on to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

First time around we made big ones (see picture) and these I worked out at around 18g CHO, so you need to plan ahead with these puppies or negotiate sharing one (good luck with that). I’d go with half the size for around 10g CHO.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Okay, the recipe name isn't appetising sounding but this is a pretty decent full-on chocolate cake - and it doesn't need flour!

Ingredients
450g dark chocolate
1 cup organic light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup organic white cane sugar
3/4 cup very hot strong coffee (or espresso)
220g butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
200g (or more) raspberries (I used frozen ones)
2 tbsp unsweetened organic cocoa powder
8 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tbsp bourbon vanilla extract


Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (fan oven). Prepare a 9 or 10-inch springform pan by lining the bottom with buttered parchment. You may find you need to wrap the edges in tin-foil if the middle turns out wet while the sides are brown.
2. Break up the dark chocolate into pieces pulse until the chocolate breaks up into small bits. Add the sugar. Pulse until the chocolate and sugar turns into an even, sandy grain.
   I reduced the sugar measure above by about 1/4 cup only since the chocolate can bitter.
3. Pour the hot water or coffee slowly into the feed tube as you pulse again. Pulse until the chocolate is melted.
4. Add the butter pieces and the cocoa powder, and pulse to combine. 
5. Add the eggs and vanilla, and process till smooth. The batter will be liquid and creamy.
6. Pour the batter into the lined springform pan.
7. Bake at 180C for about 65 minutes, though use a skewer to check as it can take perhaps 15min longer.
8. Place the cake pan on a wire rack to cool. The cake will deflate. Don't worry!
9. When the cake is completely cooled, cover, and chill it for three hours (up to eight hours) until serving. Release the cake from the pan. Slice and serve.

Be sure to take from fridge an hour before eating as it brings out the taste better.

Carb Count

This can be tricky depending on the % cocoa in the chocolate that you use. For example, 70% dark chocolate has about 30g CHO per 100g chocolate. 80-85% cocoa has about 22g CHO and 90% cocoa has 14g CHO. And with 450g in this cake, that's the difference between 135g and 63g. Figuring it out for say 80% cocoa gives a total of around 400g CHO. On the up side though, you'll easily get 25 slices from this cake, yielding 16g CHO per slice.

This can be an expensive cake - the chocolate alone can weigh in at around €10. I had fresh raspberries on hand but went with the frozen ones straight from the freezer and they worked really well though the more the better. All-in-all, you're around €15 for the cake.

Also, watch for saturated fats - there's about 370g of saturated fats in here or about 15g per slice.

Still, it's reasonably easy to make and no flour!!

Taste?

Went down well with all here, especially with the raspberries. Delicious with a cup of tea. Doesn't look spectacular to the eyes, but it's very luxurious.

Lemongrass & Garlic Chicken

Heck, why didn't I photograph this! Stumbled upon this recipe on the web by Nattypoo in Oz (thanks!). It's a fairly piquant, tart taste but went down really well with our gang and you're likely to have most/all of the ingredients in the fridge, which is always a plus.


Ingredients (serves 4/5)

4 chicken breasts

2 lemongrass stalks
4 tbsp of plain yogurt (I used creme fraiche, small tub)
2 lemon, juiced
4 cloves of garlic, sliced (I crushed them)
1 onion, chopped roughly
2cm ginger, finely chopped

1 pack mange-tout (or similar)

Directions

1. Cut chicken into bit sized pieces
2. Cut lemongrass into 2 cm circles then half and break apart
3. Slice up garlic and onion
4. Put the chicken pieces into a bowl along with the lemongrass, onion, garlic and ginger
5. Add the yogurt/creme fraiche and lemon juiceand mix well
6. Cover and leave in fridge for about 30 minutes to an hour (I got away with 15min)
7. Heat pan and some olive oil to a medium/low heat
8. Cook half the strips at a time until golden brown. Again, we just threw the lot in and didn't stir much so as to keep the heat in the pot
9. Add the mange-tout or your own veg preference
10. Add salt to season - we found this really necessary
11. Serve with basmati rice or rice noodles 

Carb count is really just the rice/noodles and with the creme fraiche, the fat content isn't too bad.

Tasted great and not really much bother once you remember to allow for the marinating.

The Humble Digestive

Things get complicated pretty fast when you start avoid gluten. The humble Digestive biscuit (or Graham cracker as they call it in the states) is a staple not just for hypos but as they very necessary base in any given cheesecake. And of course, the cheesecake is a handy diabetes stand-in.
So here goes...


Ingredients
100g buckwheat flour (or plain flour)
1/3 teaspoon baking powder (make sure it's gf)
50g butter
30g dark brown soft sugar
2 tablespoons milk
pinch of salt

1. Crumb in the butter to the flour mixture and add milk to bind into a dough.
2. Roll out to 1/2inch thickness (tricky this but hey, it's home-made)
3. Cut out funny shapes and prick with fork before chilling in freezer for 10 minutes
4. Place on baking parchment and bake for 150C for 10-12 minutes - watch, they burn quickly
5. Transfer to wire rack to cool
6. Like other biscuits, they can be frozen but do so individually and in tinfoil wrap

Verdict

These are lovely, very crisp and slightly crunchy like a biscuit should be. A little bit of an effort for what was previously handily in the press but there is the entertainment factor of baking them.


Carb Counting
I reckon we got about 25 small star shaped biscuits from this batch and the total carb count on the ingredients above comes out at about 115 so I round out each biscuit to 5g. Not too bad but I'd down 3 at a time!

Bringing home the biscuits

The experimentation began in earnest today - baking biscuits sans wheat flour. Armed with an array of the flours - basically every bean or seed that could be milled - I began googling and came up with Buckwheat Chocolate Chip cookies (yes, seems the US has a lock on biscuits).


The recipe comes from Karina Allrich, the self-proclaimed Gluten-free Goddess (ouch!). First off these are big, not McDonald-size but about 5cm across and not slim, so you'll need plenty of baking trays to spread them on if you want them thinner.


Dry Ingredients
1 cup organic buckwheat flour (84 carbs)
1 cup rice or sorghum flour (110 carbs)
1/2 cup tapioca starch (used cornflour instead) (90 carbs)
1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum (probably don't need this if using plain flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon sea salt

"Wet" mix ingredients:
1 cup butter/margarine
1 cup light brown sugar (I reduced this from 1.5 cups, seems fine) (200 carbs)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon honey (17 carbs)
2 free-range eggs, beaten

Add-ins:
2-5 tablespoons milk
1/2-1 cup dark chocolate chopped (milk chocolate would add *lots* to carb count)
1/2 cup chopped nuts, coconut, or chopped dried fruit, if desired


Directions

1. Bring the dry ingredients together and mix thoroughly. In a separate bowl beat the butter/margarine, sugar, honey and vanilla extract. Add in the beaten eggs and beat to combine.
2. Add the dry ingredients bit by bit using the milk to form a dough.
3. Add in the chocolate chips and/or nuts.
4. Chill the dough mixture for an hour.
5. Spoon out 20 little dough-balls and place on baking tray (use baking parchment if you don't want them to stick!). Flatten them down to make them into (vague) biscuit shapes (ah, round).
6. Bake for 12-15min. at 180C in a fan oven
7. Remove to cooling rack where they'll crisp up as they cool.

If you plan on freezing them, cool completely and wrap individually in tinfoil.

Ingredient check:
In case you're wondering Xanthum Gum is there to replace the affect of gluten. Can be had in M&S (Enniskillen) and www.ecodirect.ie or www.iherb.com. The flours can be found in Holland & Barrett, Kate's Kitchen or Tir Na nOg as well as from Doves Farm web-site. I'll likely get around to post on flour retailers so given how much of it I'm getting through!


And now for the carb count:
Not the best of news here. The different flours have different carbs but overall I think this number would be pretty close for plain flour. (Drum roll please) - 20 biscuits at 25 carbs apiece. Now that said, I got 27 easily and would have preferred more (smaller) biscuits but ran out of baking trays! Our precious would be thrilled with 12 carbs-worth of these, though must make smaller since 25 carbs is a no-no.

Update:

Baked a dream and waiting to see how they taste! We'll have to post an armed guard for tonight! They are light and crispy and very home-made looking so fingers crossed.
Update:
These didn't work! They looked great but they crumble into too fine a crumb (powder?) when ate. Maybe I'll try a smaller batch and bake for longer. Would welcome any ideas...

Peanut & Honey Breakfast bars

We find these breakfast bars a great alternative to morning cereals. The recipe is from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall but I've made a few changes. There may seem to be a lot of simple sugars but I've amended it from the original by reducing sugar & honey. The oats bring the whole bar into a lower GI (glycemic index) bracket and two of these will keep you feeling full late into the morning.


Ingredients

Fresh from the oven

• 100g unsalted butter
• 50g soft brown sugar or light muscovado sugar (I use some Perfect Sweet sometimes though the jury is out)
• 125g no-sugar-added crunchy peanut butter (Meridian is good but Whole Foods is better)
• 50g honey, plus a little more to finish (I use some Agave Nectar but can't say it's kind to the BG levels)
• 2-3 eggs
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon - if it feels very dry, I add some of the lemon or orange juice
• 200g porridge oats (not jumbo) - I use Mornflakes. For the gluten-free option I use 50g Barkat Porridge Flakes (i.e. rice flakes), 50g buckwheat (try Tesco) and 50g gf cornflakes, crushed. Or 120g Oats, 50g Buckwheat and 30g cornflakes.
• 150g dried fruit, such as raisins, sultanas and chopped apricots, prunes or dates, either singly or in combination - I use whatever is handy
• 120g mixed seeds, such as pumpkin, sunflower, poppy, linseed and sesame. I add in some Linwoods ground seeds too.

Directions
1. Grease and line a baking tin, about 20cm square. Put the butter, sugar, peanut butter, honey and grated citrus zests in a deep saucepan over a very low heat. Leave until melted, stirring from time to time.

2. Stir the oats (or buckwheat), dried fruit, seeds and eggs into the melted butter mixture until thoroughly combined. Spread the mixture out evenly in the baking tin, smoothing the top as you go.

3. Place in an oven preheated to 150°C/Gas Mark 3 (fan oven) and bake for about 30 minutes, until golden in the centre and golden brown at the edges.

4. Leave to cool completely before trying to cut. I usually get about 30 small bars from an 8in X 6in tray. I wrap these individually in squares of tin-foil, place in a tin and they keep for a week easily.


Carbs
I generally allow about 15g carbs for each bar. I've found they don't spike BG levels and certainly keep you feeling full. The gluten-free version doesn't have as good a GI though.