Hulless Oats

 I foolishly said on a previous post that threshing the grain wasn't the issue - Well it turns out I was wrong there as well. 

My hulless oats have been causing me trouble as well. 

Small Scale Grain

So my plans for growing some more calories on our smallholding has already hit some setbacks. I had planned to turn the front lawn over to growing some grains and started to grow some grains as plug plants in the green house but unfortunately the mice put pay to that idea. 

Sorting grain - hull less on the left and the ones with hulls on the right

They ate most of my wheat seed and all of the hull less oats that I had when I started them in cells in the greenhouse. I managed to get some hull less barley growing and enough wheat to make a triple row.

Goodbye Front Lawn?

I've shared this on other forms of social media over the weekend and it's been interesting seeing the different comments from the other platforms.

I really dislike my scrappy front lawn. I never mow the grass so it always looks a right mess. I've already put raised beds on the one half (this is the other half) where I grow some crops over the summer. 

I'm now thinking I'd like to grow a small patch of cereal in this area.

The Ultimate Flapjack Recipe

I've gone a bit oats mad at the moment.

After my microwave porridge post the other day, Spade and Dagger mentioned how they'd been spoilt by using Pim Hill Farm organic oats, and how they tasted way better than what you can normally buy.  

I had a conversation with the lovely people at Pim Hill Farm about trying some of their products. Looking at their website I already loved their ethos and how they grew their product, we don't exclusively buy organic, but we do try to when we can. 

I was stupidly excited when the box turned up, not many people get that excited about oats I can tell you!

Well the kids did, but the box didn't last long! 

First thing to try was the porridge oats. I was almost a little worried, would they be any better?
Well happily I can report that they they take porridge to another level! Much smoother, creamier and somehow they taste more "oaty".

Trouble is I think it might have spoilt the children and no other oats will compare now, gone are the days of budget oats! They sell big 5kg bags for £15.75 on their site which still works out at only 15p a portion (adult). I love buying big bags in bulk anyway, so it suits me!

I was a little unsure what to do with the jumbo oats, then I thought flapjack.
But then I looked in the cupboard and saw that we'd got no golden syrup left, I guess with how much porridge we've been eating lately I shouldn't have been surprised!

Looking to the pantry I saw some condensed milk on the shelf. I remembered that mum used to make awesome flapjack using it. I grabbed the family cookbook and had a look through, she used to make huge batches of this when she had a tea room on the farm.


The Ultimate Flapjack Recipe

Now I know Ultimate is a bold claim but this stuff is simply amazing. 

I even had to ask mum if she minded me giving away this recipe! Mum and friend had a competition to see who could come up with the best recipe, mum lost but we gained her friends recipe so we didn't care! 

The recipe is dead simple:

12oz of jumbo oats
8oz of butter
4oz of soft brown sugar
4 tlbsp condensed milk
4 oz of raisins or chopped dried apricots

Packed down ready to go in the oven

Heat the oven to 160 degrees C, mix the sugar, oats and raisins together. Then add in melted butter and condensed milk and mix. Put in a tray lined with parchment paper then bake for 25 - 30 minutes until done.

Variation
For an amazing variation put one layer of flapjack in the tray, cover with cherry pie filling then add another layer of flapjack on top!

It was so good I had to make it twice - once I'd made one batch I saw half a tin of condensed milk left in the fridge looking all lonely, so I made as second batch the very next day. By the weekend ti was all gone! 

What's your favorite flapjack recipe?

*Pim Hill farm did give me the oats to create this post, but all the views and opinions are my own.