I can remember my good friend Claire telling me about a microwave slice recipe and I was positive I kept a copy of it but couldn’t find it anywhere especially when I had company coming for afternoon tea and I needed something to feed the kids. I did a quick Google search and found this one on Best Recipes.
I can see this recipe being one of my favourites. Mix it all up in a dish suitable for the microwave, press down, cook for 3 minutes, allow to cool, ice and serve. I’ll add some nuts, use different flavoured icings and sprinkles, omit the cocoa, add sultanas, choc chips, dried fruit, you name it.
Mix all ingredients together in a microwave dish that will double as the slice dish. No need to grease the dish.
Cook on medium high for 3 minutes. (I had an 1100w microwave and cooked mine for 2 minutes 30 seconds and checked then I cooked for a further 30 seconds.)
Allow to cool slightly and ice with a simple icing of icing sugar, cocoa and milk. Top with sprinkles if desired.
Variations:
Omit cocoa
Add sultanas, nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips
Serve uniced or with a drizzle of melted chocolate
This is a cost comparison on how to make your own muesli bars from scratch to save money and know exactly what ingredients are going into them.
Muesli bars are something that are worth making from scratch compared to if you buy them from the supermarket.
Using very basic ingredients you keep on hand all the time, you can make these muesli bars in no time and you’ll know exactly what ingredients are in them.
MUESLI BARS & OTHER LUNCH BOX SNACKS
Don’t worry. I get it. We’re all very busy and grabbing a $5 box of 12 muesli bars to throw in your child’s lunch box is super convenient.
I’ve tasted those store bought muesli bars and I don’t think they compare in taste to anything you can bake at home. Muesli bars (or oat bars, flapjacks, etc etc) are such an easy thing to throw together while you’re getting dinner ready.
They’re so easy for the kids to make as well. It’s just melt and mix. All you need is rolled oats, a few other very basic pantry staples and then you can let your hair down and throw in whatever your child’s favourite things are.
Things like:
chocolate chips
nuts
dried fruit
or check out the supermarket aisle for recipe combination inspiration
My biggest problem is what’s in the supermarket muesli bars. Check this out for a popular brand of Chocolate Chip Muesli Bars.
Seriously? You need a science degree to know what half of those things are!
THE RECIPE I USE FOR MAKING MUESLI BARS FROM SCRATCH
My recipe for Honey Oat Bars (from my high school Home Economics cook book “Day to Day Cookery” which I use as a base for my muesli bars) has these ingredients:
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup coconut
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup honey
90gm butter
1/4 tsp bicarb soda
1/4 chocolate chips (optional)
That’s it! Other than the bicarb soda, everything is natural, they aren’t too sweet and this recipe produces about 18 ‘bars’.
COST COMPARISON OF MAKING THEM FROM SCRATCH
I did the exercise and costed out this recipe.
Compared to the 12 pack box of branded Chocolate Chips Muesli Bars at $5.00 ($0.60 each), the cost to make these yourself as above works out at a total of $1.46 for 18 bars or 9 cents each!
A SAVING OF $3.64 per BOX or $0.51 cents each.
If you bought a box per week, that would cost $260 for 624 bars in 12 months.
If you made a batch per week of 18 (or made a double batch and stored them in the freezer) at a cost of $1.46, it would cost you $75.92 for 936 bars!
That would be a saving of $184.08 over the course of the year.
Not only that, you’ll know exactly what’s going into the bars compared to that massive list of ingredients above.
THE COST COMPARISON & THE RECIPE
I’ve based the cost of the ingredients on current Coles Supermarket prices (as at October 2020) and used the homebrand ingredients and, in this case, I opted to use syrup instead of honey in this recipe because syrup is cheaper.
It’s a bit fiddly because you need to find the cost of the total ingredient, how much a serving weighs (just Google it) and then enter into the calculator above. A good exercise and you’ll soon see how much you can actually save from making your food from scratch.
If you’re looking for an easy ANZAC Biscuit recipe, this is mine. It’s the same one I used when I was a child and is probably the same one (or similar) used back in the days of World War I. This is my easy ANZAC Biscuits in less than 30 minutes recipe.
Today is ANZAC Day, a day all Australians (and New Zealanders) commemorate the day the ANZAC soldiers landed on the beach at Gallipoli, Turkey in 1915 and remember the fallen soldiers (and still serving soldiers) in all conflicts since. We have a day off from school and work and every town and city in Australia marks the occasion with a dawn service at an ANZAC Memorial and a morning march.
Everybody usually makes Anzac Biscuits for ANZAC Day (or any time of the year really). They’re so easy to make and it was thought the women back home baked these biscuits for the soldiers overseas during World War I as they traveled and kept well.
I’m all out of rolled oats so we won’t be making them tomorrow. The above photo is from a previous time I made them. The kids enjoy making them (and eating them). The kids have had their fair share of sweet things for a while. The following is the recipe I use all the time, from my high school Home Economics text book “Day to Day Cookery”.
Anzac Biscuits
1 cup plain flour 1 cup rolled oats 3/4 cup coconut 3/4 cup sugar 140g butter 3 tsp golden syrup 3 tbs boiling water 1 tsp baking soda
Mix dry ingredients. Melt butter in saucepan, add syrup and water. Add baking soda, allow to foam and pour into dry ingredients. Mix well and drop spoonfuls onto baking tray. Allow room for spreading. Bake in a 160 deg C oven until golden brown.
The Ode of Remembrance
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
I first remember cottage cheese in the 1970s when my mother bought it. I think it was because of the diet craze and somehow cottage cheese had all these health benefits. For me, as a teenager, I took one look at it and knew it wasn’t for me but as an adult, I’ve found it to be just as good to use in recipes as cream cheese but lighter and healthier. Here’s 26 sweet or savoury recipes using cottage cheese.
What is cottage cheese?
Cottage cheese has a mild flavour and is made from milk. It is made usually by heating the milk then adding an acid product to separate the curds from the whey. I think a lot of people are put off by the look of it but it can easily be whipped to a smooth consistency with either an electric hand beater or whisk.
Commercially, the product undergoes a few more processes and then mixed with cream ready for packaging and sold in the supermarket as we know it today. There are various levels of fat content available.
It’s easy enough to make yourself at home. It’s also the perfect substitute where ricotta cheese or Greek yoghurt is needed in a recipe. Blend the cottage cheese until smooth and use as required.
Is it healthy?
As mentioned earlier, it is well known in dieting circles as being the perfect light solution to cream cheese because of the lighter fat content. It can be used for both sweet and savoury options.
That doesn’t mean that it can’t be used normally to replace cream cheese in recipes if you don’t have cream cheese.
Many countries around the world use a product similar to what we know as cottage cheese. It’s called quarkand used regularly for both sweet and savoury dishes.
If you’re looking for ways to use up cottage cheese, search for quark recipes for more inspiration.
You know when you buy an ingredient because the kids are eating it like there’s no tomorrow and then all of a sudden they stop? Well, that’s what happened when I bought a huge bag of popping corn and now no one will eat it. I thought I’d share 20 different ways to use up popping corn kernels. Hopefully this will get them eating it. (If not the kids, the grown ups.)
