So, I cannot be the only parent who two weeks into term, sighs at the unenviable task of providing a balanced, healthy, nutritious and tasty packed lunch for their child to toddle off to school with each day. The supermarkets are a nightmare – shelves laden with yummy but ultimately not that healthy snack bars of every description, crisps, chocolate, more snack bars in a different section (they are sneaky – you think you’ve safe walking down aisle 7 then boom! more appear in the “whole foods section” – gggrrrrrr) and shopping with any child becomes somewhat of a battle, in which food is the enemy.
We live in Singapore, having relocated from the UK and the immediately noticeable differences on the shelves here are firstly the price – I mean the equivalent of £6 for a box of 6 tracker bars? Once you have recovered from the double take of re-reading the price (locals have coined the term sticker shock) you are then struck by the very limited choice in the way of snacks for lunch boxes. Well, we’ve been here 5 weeks and I’ve not found something I’m happy to put into her lunch other than fresh fruit.
It was time for action and having just moved into our own apartment we finally had a kitchen, our belongings from the shipping container and bags and bags of enthusiasm to start making our own little snack time treats. After searching for the ingredients and feeling very proud of my little bag of goodies, I returned home after collecting my little helper and we set about making our own batch of gooey flapjacks with some added healthy bits chucked in for good measure.
Ingredients
- 400g porridge oats
- 200g honey
- 200g unsalted butter
- optional nuts/banana slices/coconut – about 50g
Method
- Melt the sugar, honey, butter together over a low heat in a non-stick pan.
- Turn the oven onto Gas Mark 4 or 180 degrees.
- Add the oats and mix well switching off the heat. Then add in any additional ingredients and mix.
- Turn out into a pre-greased tin measuring 20 x 30cm and pop into the oven for between 15-20 mins.
- Remove and leave to cool completely.
Top tip is to score with a knife into slices whilst still warm. Makes it a lot easier to pop out the bars or squares later on. The other thing we do in our house is use the butter foil to wipe the inside of the tin and grease it all so the flapjacks pop out. Saves getting a piece of butter and scooping onto a bit of greaseproof paper and uses up something you’d otherwise throw away.
I used the recipe from the BBC Good Food which you can follow here.
Here are the final stages of process from the raw mixture, going in the oven and ta dah – ready to cool, cut into squares and use 🙂
Remember, adventure is out there!
Nat x
