Bad weather, but great food

The great thing about bad weather (and boy have we had our share in the last few weeks) is that I don't feel guilty been inside.  I don't feel that I should be climbing another hill, cycling around another park or taking my boat out for another training session.
What I do feel like doing is cooking - for me a really comforting and relaxing thing to do, despite the fact that I do it pretty much every day for work.  But this is different , this is cooking for me, cooking food that I really want to eat.

And this week I have been spoilt in that the clients I have been working for and provided me with enough food to feed myself for the next week!  So all I had to do was decide how to cook it all.
The first client, Good Natured left me with crisp peppers, onions, gorgeous ripe vine tomatoes and herbs, so obviously my first meal was delicious roast peppers stuffed with other ingredient from my store-cupboard - garlic, onion, courgette slices, anchovies, olive oil and seasoning - slowly roasted for 45 minutes - scrummy.
As the oven was on (memories of my Father insisting that once the oven was on my mother had to fill it!), I roasted the tomatoes too, with just a sprinkling of olive oil and seasoning.  Meanwhile I cooked 1 chopped onion with 1 tsp cumin seeds and 1 tsp mustard seeds in coconut oil and then stirred in a drained can of butter beans.  When the tomatoes were slightly charred and really soft I poured them and all of their juices into the pan with the onion, added a little water and simmered for 5-6 minutes before blitzing with a hand blender until smooth - really delicious and nutritious soup, and so simple.

The second client Naturya, provided me with the whole range of their wonderful superfoods - enough to last me the next year, so I was in heaven!  Not only did I stir some barleygrass powder into my soup, I also made these great fruity oat squares, using dried mulberries, goji berries, cocoa nibs, hemp protein powder and lucuma powder. After eating a few of those I should be super human!

Fruity Oat Squares

Makes 9-12

25 g goji berries

25 g dried mulberries

juice of 1 pink grapefruit

100 g coconoil

90 g blackstrap molasses

20 g dark muscovado sugar

25 g agave syrup

235 g rolled oats

10 g Naturya Hemp Protein Powder

10 g Naturya Lucuma Powder

50 g Naturya Cocoa Nibs

grated rind of 1 lemon

Soak the goji berries and mulberries in the grapefruit juice for 30 minutes. Drain.

·          Preheat the oven to 180° (350°F) Gas Mark 4.  Grease an 18 cm square tin.

·          In a large pan, melt together the coconut oil, molasses, sugar and agave syrup.  Stir until the sugar has dissolved.

·         Pour in the remaining ingredients and mix together really well.

·         Pour into the prepared tin and level the top.

·         Bake for 18-20 minutes, then remove from the oven and leave for 2 minutes before cutting into squares.  Leave to cool completely in the tin.