Overnight Oats

Everyone at class has been telling me how great overnight oats are, how they love them and that they’re the best thing literally since sliced bread.  Clearly nothing is better than sliced bread and I’ve steadfastly refused to give up my Weetabix muffins for anyone, but I decided that it’s about time I took one for the team and gave them a go.

There’s loads of different flavor options but poking around the kitchen I decided to try making an apple strudel version as that worked with what I had in the fruit bowl and sounded quite nice.  Also I didn’t want to use red fruits as I thought they’d bleed overnight and make my breakfast look nasty.

It’s really very straightforward, weigh out your 35g dry oats (a heb) and layer them with your yogurt of choice and fruit/other stuff.  

For the apple strudel I used a Muller Light vanilla with chocolate sprinkles, grated granny smith apple, a dusting of mixed spice and a couple of sultanas.  If you don’t want to add the sultanas as they’re high in syns at 3.5 for 25g then you don’t have to, but I hardly used any and it did make a difference to the taste/texture of the finished dish.  I layered like this: oats, yogurt, grated apple, dusting of mixed spice, sultanas and repeated making sure the oat layers weren’t too think so they would soak up the yogurt and not be dry.  Popped in the fridge overnight ready for breakfast the next day.

Apple Strudle Overnight Oats

My verdict is that they’re good.  They’re a little claggy I’d say and for my taste really need to be cold, if they weren’t straight from the fridge I don’t think I would’ve liked them.  I added some chopped strawberries and raspberries just before eating to up my fruit intake and have to admit it was a refreshing change.  Not enough to persuade me to forfeit the Weetabix muffins but certainly something I’d have again.

There’s so many flavor options to try so I might give them a whirl every weekend and see what I like the best but apple strudel is absolutely a great start!

Kathy xx

Jaffa Cake & Strawberries and Cream Syn Free Jellies

It was a syn free taster night at class this week and I couldn’t decide whether to make Faux-ribos or chocolate jellies.  Clearly I don’t have enough to think about as I was pondering this dilemma as I was driving about at the weekend and decided to try a combination of the two!  Mentally going through my cupboards at home I realized that I had orange jelly and orange yoghurt as well as chocolate orange options so clearly I had to make jaffa cake jellies.  But of course.

Jaffa cake jellies

Now I admit that I love jaffa cakes and had very high hopes for these sweeties and they didn’t disappoint – yay!  The taste was absolutely spot on and whilst clearly the texture isn’t the same as a biscuit (or cake, whatever they are) the flavor is absolutely there.  

It makes me smile to share them at class and see someone’s face light up as the taste hits them.  Very, very satisfying.

Clearly making one batch wasn’t enough and it was suggested that I also try strawberries and cream, so I did and yup, these taste absolutely awesome too.  

Strawberries and Cream Jellies

I can’t decide which I prefer, today the jaffa cake flavor wins but strawberries and cream is so refreshing and sweet that it’s a super close second.  Maybe try both and see which you prefer?  I’ll keep having a think and let you know what other flavor combinations hit me.

Kathy xx