Ever have one of those days? I am having one today. I have had a recipe for Homemade Molasses Bear Paw Cookies bookmarked to bake for quite a long time now. You can find it here. After my last fail at making similar cookies, my sister had shared this one with me, thinking that it might be a better option.
I love molasses cookies. My mom made wonderful ones. We never went home for a visit but what a tin full of molasses cookies was waiting for us. I will always equate mom with those special treats, and I strongly suspect that I will never ever be able to bake any as good as the memory of the taste of hers, especially now that she is no longer with us. By the way, these first two cookie photos are not the Bear Paws . . .
By then I was wanting a cookie . . . but a good cookie, and so I baked these Lemon Oaties instead. The original recipe comes from Everyday Diabetic Recipes.
I love oatmeal cookies almost as much as I like molasses cookies, and when you throw the flavour of lemon into the mix I am in like Flynn!
It can be a bit hard to bake Diabetic recipes from a lot of online sites because the ingredients are not available here in the UK. This was a simple recipe, that didn't require anything out of the ordinary.
It did call for stick margarine, but I don't use stick margarine. I use butter. End of. Butter is a natural thing, not mechanically produced. I like natural.
The recipe makes 30 cookies so 5 TBS of butter divided by 30 means not a lot in each cookie. If I am correct, there is not a lot of difference in fat or calories between butter and margarine, although butter might have slightly more cholesterol. At least it is produced naturally, not chemically. That's my story anyways, and I'm sticking to it!
There is some sugar in these, 45g each of white and light brown sugar (1/4 cup) each, so 1/2 cup altogether. I am not sure a sugar substitute would work or not. but at only 3g of sugar per cookie, I don't think these are overly bad.
They are low carb, low GI . . . with only 70g/1/2 cup of flour in the whole recipe and 80g (1 cup) quick cooking rolled oats . . . oats are very low GI and contain fibre, which is a good thing. You could probably use white whole wheat and make them even lower in the carbs if you wanted to. We don't have white whole wheat flour here in the UK. At least not that I am aware of.
There are two egg white in the recipe, which help to give the cookies a bit of lightness and volume.
The lemon flavour comes from the addition of finely grated Lemon Zest. One full TBS. I use my microplane grater to grate it.
They are not huge cookies, but they are really delicious, and to be honest a Diabetic shouldn't be eating huge cookies anyways!
One of these cookies makes for a delicious oaty, buttery, lightly sweet, lemony treat. I think they are quite fabulous actually and I will be putting them into my regular rotation!
Yield: 30
Lemon Oaties
Crisp cookies with a delicate lemon flavour that are quick and easy to make and very diabetic friendly.
ingredients:
- 5 TBS butter, room temperature(or stick margarine)
- 45g soft light brown sugar (1/4 cup, packed)
- 45g granulated sugar (1/4 cup)
- 2 large free range egg whites
- 1 TBS finely grated Lemon zest
- 80g quick cooking rolled oats (1 cup)
- 70g plain flour (1/2 cup)
instructions:
How to cook Lemon Oaties
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Line several baking sheets with baking paper. Set aside.
- Beat the butter, both sugars, egg whites and lemon zest together until light and creamy. Blend in the oats and flour. Don't over mix.
- Drop the dough onto the prepped baking sheets by rounded teaspoonfuls, leaving 2 inches between each.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Let stand on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
- Store in an airtight container.
I am a person who does find it really annoying when I waste ingredients, especially when they are hard to come by. I think I will stick to my mother's Molasses Cookie recipe from now on when I get a craving for Molasses Cookies. It never lets me down.
Up Tomorrow: Apple Pie Danish
Here I am sharing a delicious fish recipe for Friday the 13th. Fish for Friday! Not unlucky! Good for you!
I have always seen Friday the 13th as being a lucky day myself, and 13 as being one of my lucky numbers!
Today's dish is Haddock, using some of that lovely fish I got from Seafresh quality foods a while back. I had used some in a fish pie and it was excellent.
I thought today I would bake the remainder in one of my favourite ways to enjoy Haddock.
Seafresh is an on line fish monger, which sells quality fish, seafood,
poultry and meat. I was incredibly impressed with both
their product and their delivery service!
There was absolutely nothing
that I could fault with any of it. Feel free to read about my experience here.
Their Haddock Loins are skinless, boneless and responsibly sourced in the Atlantic Ocean. Its a great alternative to Cod, and let me tell you these fillets are nice and meaty and a great size.
You can bake them from frozen if you wish, but for this recipe today I preferred to use them thawed.
This is a really simple way of preparing Haddock. Of course you could do this with any kind of fish, but it is especially good with Haddock.
All you will need is some seasoning, cracker crumbs, butter and of course the fish.
I use Ritz Cracker for this as they work and taste the best. The seasoned haddock gets placed in a buttered dish.
Finally, you just sprinkle a layer of buttered cracker crumbs over top and bake.
Easy peasy, lemon squeasy as they say! And oh so tasty!
You can serve them with some lemon wedges for squeezing over top.
Fish and lemon . . . a beautiful combination.
My sister had been tormenting me with tales of her and Dad going out for dinners of Haddie Bits and Chips.
I have never had Haddie Bits and Chips, but apparently they are delicious.
Here's a photo of them . . . just so you can drool also. These come from Pearle's in Paradise, Nova Scotia. Sigh . . .
Have I ever told you that whenever anyone in my family goes out to eat we like to treat ourselves to Fish and Chips? Its true.
We are all the same . . . so predictable.
This Homestyle Baked Haddock is just as good, well almost as good anyways, and a lot less work.
We enjoyed it with Spring Onion Mash, broccoli, cauliflower and some cobs of frozen corn.
Oh boy . . . usually you can rely on the frozen cobs of corn to at least taste half decent but meh . . . this was nothing to write home about.
Its a good thing the rest of the dinner more than made up for it! Yum yum!
Yield: 4
Homestyle Baked Haddock
Quite simply delicious. Good food, simple ingredients, quality ingredients, done well. What more could you want.
ingredients:
- 1 - 1/2 pound haddock loin fillets
- 60g cracker crumbs (1 cup)
- 6 TBS melted butter
- fine sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
- lemon wedges and chopped fresh parsley to serve
instructions:
How to cook Homestyle Baked Haddock
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Have ready a baking dish large enough to hold all of your fish in one layer with space in between each fillet. Spread one TBS of the melted butter on the bottom of the dish.
- Wipe the fish dry and season it all over generously with salt and pepper. Lay in a single layer in the baking dish.
- Combine the remaining butter and the cracker crumbs. Sprinkle these evenly over the fish.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, until golden brown and the fish flakes easily. Serve hot with lemon wedges for squeezing and a sprinkle of fresh parsley if desired.
You know what I am going to do the next time I get home for a visit? You got it Pontiac. I'm treating myself to some Haddie Bits and Chips. In the meantime I will just have to enjoy fabulously tasty dishes like this! I hope you will too!
A few things about Seafresh:
- Same Day dispatch on orders received before 1 PM.
- All packages are carefully hand packed.
- Free delivery on orders above £50, £8 on orders below that amount.
- Responsibly and sustainably sourced.
- Air Blast Frozen at source within 4 hours of being caught.
- Wide variety to choose from.
Follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Note - Although I was gifted with product free of charge for the purposes of review, I was not required to write a positive review in exchange, nor would my integrity allow me to recommend anything if I did not truly like it. Any and all my opinions are my own entirely.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
This is a deliciously simple supper dish that I have had in my wait queue for a very long time. I don't know why it has taken me so long to post it. I guess life got in the way!
I enjoy a real love affair with Tex Mex food. When I first moved over here it was very difficult to find anything Tex Mex, and ingredients to make your own dishes were few and far between.
I used to bring my own chili powder and taco seasoning, etc. back with me when I came back to the UK after Canadian visits. I learnt to make my own seasoning mixes as well, using what I had to hand.
Thankfully it is a lot easier to find Tex Mex ingredients over here nowadays. I think we have Thomasina Meirs to thank for that. She won the BBC Master Chef competition back in 2005 and was instrumental in introducing Tex Mex flavours to the UK and the contest with her innovative style and her love of Mexico and its food.
Tex Mex ingredients are not as hard to come by these days . . . with the exception of canned green chilies and tomatillos. I still have a hard time finding them.
In fact I do my own green chilies. I buy a bag of green jalapeno chilies every time I shop just about, and roast them and then freeze them in small batches, ready to use when I need them. There is no substitute for the tomatillos . . .
I make my own Taco Seasoning and my own Enchilada Sauce. Both are very easily done and I know what is in them, preservative free, and free from any nasty chemicals, additives, etc. I can also control the amount of salt and sugar. More ready made foods contain far too much of both.
I make my own flour tortillas also. You can find my Flour Tortilla Recipe here. They are very easy to make and tastes a bazillion times better than store bought. At first you might make some rather irregular shaped ones, but with time you will get better. Of course you could use a Tortilla press, if you are lucky enough to have one. I am not. I simply roll the dough into balls and then roll it out into thin rounds with a rolling pin.
This recipe today is like stacked Enchiladas I guess . . . with separate layers of re fried beans, enchilada sauce and cheese . . .
interspersed with turkey taco meat. You can use ground beef if you want. We prefer turkey. For me its a texture thing. For Todd it is a case of eating what's put in front of you, lol.
After spending 15 years on his own before we got married, he is just happy to have someone who cooks and does it well. His meals are never boring.
You layer up the beans and the taco meat in the tortillas, along with the cheese and enchilada sauce, finishing with a final layer of enchilada sauce and cheese on top . . . after that it is an easy bake in the oven until the flavours meld together and the cheese melts and its all heated through perfectly . . .
I like to sprinkle some chopped olives and spring onions on top when they are done. I cut them into wedges and serve with up with either additional warm enchilada sauce (OR salsa) and some sour cream to dollop on top. A salad on the side also goes very well!
Yield: 4
Stacked Turkey Mexi-Melts
These are surprisingly hearty and delicious. Serve with a salad on the side for a complete meal.
ingredients:
- 6 (8-inch) flour tortillas
- 1 pound ground turkey
- 1 package of taco seasoning mix
- 1 small tin of re fried beans (200g/8ounce)
- 1/2 jar enchilada sauce (I make my own) (about 1 cup)
- 120g grated strong cheddar cheese (1 cup)
- 130g grated Jack cheese (1 cup)
- chopped spring onions
- chopped green and black olives
- Additional enchilada sauce or salsa and sour cream to serve
instructions:
How to cook Stacked Turkey Mexi-Melts
- Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F. gas mark 6. Line several large baking trays with foil. Spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.
- Spray a skillet with some low fat cooking spray. Heat over medium heat, crumble in the ground turkey and then scramble fry it until no more pink remains. Sprinkle on the taco seasoning mix and add about 60ml/1/4 cup of water. Cook on low heat until everything thickens up nicely.
- Scrape the tin of refried beans into a bowl. Mash them up with a fork to loosen them a bit.
- Mix together both cheeses.
- Lay out two tortillas on the prepared baking sheet. spread 1/2 of the enchilada sauce over top. Spoon over the refried beans, spreading them out evenly. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese. Top with another tortilla. Divide the ground turkey between the two tortilla stacks and spread it out evenly. Top with another 1/3 of the cheese and the final tortillas. Spread the remainder of the enchilada sauce evenly over top of each stack and then sprinkle with the remainder of the cheese.
- Place into the preheated oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until heated through and slightly crisp on the edges. Remove from the oven. Mix together the chopped olives and spring onions. Sprinkle half on top of each stack.
- Cut into quarters to serve along with some warmed enchilada sauce or salsa and sour cream for spooning on top.
These are just so, so, SO good! I hope you will try them out and like them as much as we do!
Up Tomorrow: Homestyle Baked Haddock
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