Home made food hourglass oatcakes

Today I made oatcakes. I find I have been using oatcakes quite often but they often contain fats that are not too good for us and wheat flour which is quickly absorbed by the body. Today I mixed equal quantities of medium oatmeal and buckwheat flour with rape seed oil, and the result was very good. They are also very good for you! Here is the recipe.

Hourglass oatcakes

100g medium oatmeal
100g buckwheat flour
50g rape seed oil
Small amount of water
1/2 teaspoon salt
Sea salt crystals
Pinch bicarbonate of soda
1 egg

Mix the oatmeal and flour together and add the oil, salt and bicarbonate of soda. Mix in enough water to give a soft but not sticky dough.

Roll out using buckwheat flour on a board and cut into circles with a scone cutter.

Place on a lightly greased baking tray and brush with beaten egg. Thinly scatter with sea salt crystals. Cook in a pre heated oven to 180 degrees C, 160 degrees C fan, or gas mark 5 for about 12 minutes. Cool on a rack and eat with cheese, pate, sliced tomatoes or use in place of bread to accompany soup.

My food hourglass Pickering traction engine rally

We set off early for Pickering traction engine show this morning, with Robs daughter and partner and their two little boys. The sun shone in a breezy sky and the clouds scudded. I was prepared as we would be out all day, and food in a show ground is not cheap, and virtually never food hourglass compatible. So I packed a salad of mozzarella, home grown tomatoes, cucumber, parsley, mint and carrot sticks and dressed it with rape seed oil and lemon. I also put in a pack of blueberries, walnuts, dark chocolate, and an orange for each of us, with lots of water.

We must have saved a fortune on drinks and snacks. Every other stall was selling doughnuts slathered with chocolate, candy floss, biscuits, fluorescent ropes of liquorice or hot dogs spilling onions in soft white baps. We avoided these and sat on a landing stage by a pond to eat our pack up. It tasted beautiful in the sunshine with the sound of the fairground and the smell of steam from the traction engines.

We saw glorious machines, shining like new, belching smoke and steam like fiery monsters, with whole families camping in gypsy wagons, living vans and an assortment of caravans and converted horse boxes.

It was a day to remember. In the late afternoon we lolled on straw bales in a big old tent and drank a pint of cloudy cider each as a treat.