Bo's Kitchen

Plant based recipes made with love

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Cranberry and pistachio energy bars

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cranberry and pistachio energy bars

These cranberry and pistachio energy bars have been a firm favourite in my house this month. They’re so quick to prepare and compared to traditional energy bars, which in my experience tend to be dry, flavourless and tough, these are moist, sweet and incredibly moreish. The best bit is you can easily swap the ingredients around depending on what you have in your pantry- I love flexible recipes. The perfect way to use up all of those leftover bags of dried fruits and nuts from Christmas. Pistachio and cranberry is a wonderful combination though, so I’d recommend grabbing these if you can. They freeze really well too, so I’ve been making a big batch on a Sunday to enjoy through the week.

Feel free to add in your favourite superfoods, nut butters, dried fruits, coconut shreds, whatever you fancy really, just keep the proportions of wet to dry ingredients the same and you’ll struggle to go wrong.

I’ve worked all through the Christmas period and now I’m off for three whole days and I can’t wait to cook and shoot again, I really miss it if I can’t take pictures every day. I’m going to be rustling up some turmeric lemonade today, after spotting this beautiful recipe on my friend Janine’s blog. Take a peek here to check it out, the photography is stunning and her blog is a joy to visit. If you’d like to follow her on Instagram, you can find her at @nutsandblueberries.

Hope you’re staying warm, my sweet peas! Wishing you a very happy New Year, roll on 2017!!!

Cranberry and pistachio energy bars

  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup almonds, roughly chopped
  • 1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
  • 1/2 cup sunflower or pumpkin seeds
  • 1/ 4 cup chia seeds
  • 1 cup pitted dates
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1/4 cup almond butter
  • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
  • 1/2 cup shelled and roughly chopped pistachios
  • 1/4 tsp pink himalayan salt
  1. Preheat oven to 190•c. Pour oats, almonds, walnuts and seeds onto a baking tray and spread out evenly. Toast in the oven for 10 minutes, until slightly golden.
  2. Add dates and 1/2 cup of hot water to a food processor and blitz until a date caramel has formed. Add date mixture and toasted oat mix into a large bowl.
  3. In a small pan, gently melt maple syrup, coconut oil and almond butter. Once combined, add to the large mixing bowl with the date caramel and oats. Stir well until everything is coated. Now mix through the cranberries, pistachios and salt, leaving a few pistachios and cranberries for the top.
  4. Line a small square baking tin (mine was 8×8 inches) with parchment paper- leave a little hanging over the sides so it’s easy to remove later. Flatten the mixture down with your hands or the back of a spoon. Now add your remaining pistachios and cranberries to the top.
  5. Set in the freezer for 30 minutes, or an hour in the fridge. Cut into 12 bars and store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.

Chia bliss balls

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It’s getting so cold here lately. It takes a lot to tempt me out of the house if I’m honest! It’s not all bad though, I love nothing more than drinking endless cups of tea whilst rustling up new recipes in the kitchen when the nights get longer. A whole host of new seasonal ingredients and comforting winter recipes are tempting me every day, I’m bubbling over with ideas!

There’s a few basic recipes that I always fall back on whatever the weather and these balls are one of them. The beauty of a bliss ball is that it requires hardly any cooking, minimal ingredients and it is almost impossible to get them wrong. The results are instant too, no need to wait for them to cook! My kind of recipe. I tend to become a bit of  a snack monster when I’m cold, so a bliss ball can be just the thing to stop me reaching for something carby and sugary before dinner.

As well as being incredibly tasty and addictive, these babies are packed with goodness, oats, almonds, seeds, chia, dates and spices.

These are so easy to make, I’d love to know what you think if you try them!

 

  • 1 cup oat flour
  • 1/2 cup almond flour
  • 3 tbsp chia seeds
  • 3 tbsp sesame seeds
  • 1 tbsp flaxseed
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp mixed spice
  • 1 tbsp cacao (optional, leave out for a plain version)
  • 1/2 cup soft pitted dates
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 tbsp coconut oil
  • 4 tbsp maple syrup

Toppings –

Chia seeds, cacao powder, sesame seeds
1. Add all dry ingredients to your food processor and pulse briefly to combine.
2. Add in dates, vanilla, coconut oil and maple syrup and pulse until a dough is formed. Add more flour if it’s too wet, or a little water if it’s too dry.
3. Roll in chia seeds, cacao and sesame seeds and store in the fridge for up to 4 days in an airtight container.

 

Jammie Dodgers

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jammie dodger with strawberry and plum chia jam

Jammie Dodgers, Bo’s Kitchen style. Jammie Dodgers hail from the UK and consist of a sticky, mega sweet jam sandwiched between two shortbread cookies. These traditional biscuits used to be vegan, but as with most accidentally vegan snacks, they decided to put an animal product back in the mix for no apparent reason, so I had to make my own.

This simple cookie recipe surprised me with how delicious it was, considering it only has five ingredients! The jam is a chia jam with strawberry and plum, if you have any left over it tastes great on toast or on top of oatmeal. They keep really well in the fridge, as the coconut oil helps to keep them firm. They’re made with coconut sugar and coconut oil, far healthier than their sugar laden, non vegan cookie twin. Of course I’ve made this vegan and E number free! I made these with spelt flour, but I’m sure you could use a gluten free flour too. I may give them a whirl with buckwheat flour next.I’ve eaten most of this batch to myself so I know they must be good! I’d love to hear how you get on if you try this recipe, I’m already preparing for my second batch tomorrow…

Recipe

Cookie

  • 200g coconut oil, melted
  • 130g coconut sugar
  • 1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tbsp water)
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 350g spelt flour

Strawberry and plum chia jam

  • 1 cup strawberries, chopped
  • 4 fresh plums, pitted and chopped
  • 3 tbsp Organic Burst chia seeds
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup/agave syrup
  • 1/4 cup water
  1. Preheat your oven to 180°c and line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
  2. Make your chia jam by adding all jam ingredients to a small saucepan and bringing to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for around 30 minutes until jammy, stirring every now and then. Add a little more water if you need to.
  3. To make the cookie dough, mix coconut oil and coconut sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon. Then add flax egg and vanilla extract. Mix until combined.
  4. Add the spelt flour, using your spoon at first and then your hands,  to make sure it all comes together as a dough.
  5. Leave dough to chill for 15 minutes in the fridge. Make sure your chia jam is set aside to cool. Sprinkle a little spelt flour on your work surface and roll the dough out to about 5mm thick. Cut out your dough using one round cookie cutter and one heart cutter. Cut out as many cookie shapes as possible and use the heart cutter for half of them.
  6. Use a spatula to carefully lay the cookies on your prepared baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are lightly coloured, but not brown at the edges (they will firm as they cool). Leave to cool completely on a cooling rack.
  7. Using a teaspoon, dollop a heaping spoon of jam on your cookie and gently press the heart shape cookie on top. Sprinkle with a tiny amount of icing sugar if serving immediately, or keep in the fridge to enjoy later.