Breakfast Bar recipe & PALL tips

Brilliant if you don´t get much time to eat in the morning.

Also make a very handy pre-surf power snack!

They´re very tasty, and I´ve managed to make them with zero plastic. Don´t get much more PALL than that!

  • This post is the recipe and the shopping tips to PALL them.

Of course, you don´t need to surf to make them!  But as surfers, we do tend to see plastic pollution regularly on our way up and down the beach. Also, as surfers it´s “nice” to do what we can to protect the ocean that gives us so much.

I can´t take credit for the recipe. This is the link for the original,  Banana Flapjacks though I changed it a bit. (To much dried fruit means a bit too much farting in my case!)  I wanted to find some healthy flapjacks, I´d been buying them (PALL from the bakers) but then thought of the sugar content, or butter content & I came across theses.

I´ve made them a lot as they´re super easy and can freeze them. If I can do it, anyone can!  There from a brilliant blog Frugal Feeding.

Not sure how to shop for all this PALL?  Check out some shopping tips I wrote here. It´s helpful to get you started.

You may not be able to find every thing where you live. Don´t fret! Within the recpie I list the easiest things to find first. Your Breakfast Bars may be PALL (Plastic A Lot Less) not plastic free. But PALL-ing´s a great start.

Basically I shop at a few places in Bristol where they have “weigh your own” sections. Southville Deli  and Scoop Away are two places I love.  I shop in bulk (means I go less often) and take along tins and use paper and canvas bags. I pop in the greengrocer and do the same.

The bananas are one of the things you need fresh for this. But it also helps if they´ve gone a bit black. So I let them go black, and then freeze them. That way when I come to make them I have black bananas ready to go!

They´re really easy to make. Way easier than I thought they´d be.

Makes 12

Ingredients:

  • 2 bananas, mashed (loose and pre frozen)

  • 1 apple, peeled & grated (loose)

  • (These two items alone can save 3 plastic bags, including weighing bags)
  • 100ml hot water (from the tap!)

  • 50g butter (In paper.)  (Though currently I´m doing Veganuary so this time I added coconut butter instead, a friends tip off. It worked!)

  • 3 tbsp crunchy peanut butter (In glass, metal lid)

  • 4 tbsp honey (In glass, metal lid.)  (My jury is out on this one with regards to Veganuary. Maybe we need ethical bee keepers…? I´m doingVeganuary, I´m not Vegan. As a trial I left it out, and subbed an extra banana and apple and they taste just as good!)

  • 300g oats (can be found in paper or cardboard, or loose)
  • now you could be up to 6 items without plastic. It´s adding up….)

(All the below ingredients I buy at the “weigh it yourself section” of Southville Deli and Scoop Away.) This is harder I admit, depending where you are. But if you´ve managed the first half, that´s a brilliant step!)

  • 100g dried apricots

  • 70g raisins

  • 30g dried cranberries

  • 50g almonds

  • 50g sunflower seeds

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 160C/140C(fan). Grease and line a 20x20cm baking tin. (lower than normal, first time I burnt the lot! Whoops!) 

  2. Gently toast the seeds and almonds in a heavy based pan. Transfer them to a large mixing bowl, along with the oats and dried fruit.

  3. Melt the butter over a low heat, along with the peanut butter and honey. Add the bananas, apple and water.

  4. Pour the wet mixture into the mixing bowl and combine thoroughly. Transfer the batter into the prepared tin and smooth. Bake for 50-60 minutes until golden brown. (Mine tend to be done in 40 minutes, so check with your oven)

  5. Once removed from the oven allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool completely before cutting into 12.

  6. These flapjacks will keep well in the fridge for around 5 days, should they last that long. (they don´t! We eat them to quick, they´re yummy. I take them to work, but often end up dishing half of them out as everyone loves them!)

Enjoy, with a lovely cuppa tea!!

Before and after a surf!  ´Cos with the water temperature, we need all the fuel we can get! This recipe is such a brilliant example of how much plastic we can refuse, with just some simple breakfast bars.

Thank you Frugal Feeding! 

In case you missed it, this is the direct link Banana Flapjacks.

I would just like to say. Please don´t assume I´m some pintrest goddess in the kitchen. I´m not.  I can cook, in a basic kinda way, but that´s not to say I do…. I go through cooking phases.  When at the end of last year my house mate said to me, “So, still on the bread & cheese diet?”  I thought, yeah…. maybe a month of not being in the mood to cook is a bit much!  I have more ideas up my sleeve I´ve been cooking, so I´ll share them with you soon.

  • Thank you Claire for the photos you took when we went surfing.  A batch of breakfast bars coming your way!

(This is me, very pleased with myself that I actually baked something!)

Remember;  Every refusal adds up!

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Food shopping tips

 

FlapjacksI thought I´d post a couple of recipes, and tips of how to PALL them. Seeing as eating generates possible more single use plastic than most areas of our lives, simple because we eat three times a day.

These Banana Flapjacks, which I managed to not only make, I made with zero plastic. Cool hey!

If you´re new to PALL-ing you may be wondering how to shop without all the layers of single use plastic, so I´m keeping this post to shopping.

I did blog tips how to shop while I was in Singapore last year Singapore shopping, with a huge gallery of pictures. Also for Olive Oil and bread. This post will be how to shop for ingredients, to actually make a meal!

This is from shopping around Bristol. Though could be relevant for many places.


Being PALL does require a different shopping technique.  If I popped in a supermarket – in England – this is simply not going to happen. Though in France when I was there a couple of years ago I could. If I were in Portugal I´d be able to get most ingredients for this from a Farmers Market.

I´m in Bristol, so have shopped at Scoop Away, Southville Deli for the dry ingredients and Matter Wholefoods for the fresh. (I could have got away without the deli & done it in 2 shops but it´s closer for the heavy items such as the oats.) As for the fresh, there are literally green grocers in Bristol everywhere. We are very lucky to have so much choice close to hand!

I shop in bulk.  By buying far more than I need of dry goods, I don´t have to go shopping so much. Making PALL-ing easier.

For me, when I started shopping like this I found the benefits far out weighed going in a supermarket.

  • I don´t have to listen to the beep beep beep of the tills! They drive me nuts.
  • I don´t really que. Who wants to que?
  • The food taste better. Because, it IS better.
  • It´s often cheaper. Just because a supermarket tells you it´s cheap, doesn´t mean it is cheap!
  • I get to know local traders
  • On times I forget my money (it happens!) they´ll let me pay next time.
  • I actually enjoy shopping, rather than it being a chore.

For fruit and veg I choose the loose produce.  Yes, this does sometimes mean I don´t get what I want!  But generally I do, so I just jiggle recipes around to change ingredients. I really don´t miss out that much.

I´m lucky. At my greengrocer Matter Wholefoods they also do fresh juice. So I have one of those while I shop. In a glass! They know now I want a glass, I don´t have to ask, rather than a plastic lined cup… They are open until 7.30 pm! & on Sundays.


I put all my shopping in canvas bags which I then put on my panniers. Or carry!  (The panniers have loads of plastic, and are made of plastic. But I found them a charity shop so I let them off…)

For dry loose goods one of the places I go is Southville Deli. Open till 6.30 pm

-1It´s a bit of a PALL paradise. There were many reasons I moved to Bristol!

Sorry for those of you not in Bristol…  But for you´s that are, now you know! Get yourself down there, you´re gunna love it!

I use paper bags (ask, they have them for bread) or I use my tins I get at charity shops. I love a tin as they´re light and easy to transport.

Another place I shop is Scoop Away. Only open till 5.30pm though, so for people with day jobs you need to get down there quick! Or on a Saturday

At Scoop Away I need to be extra prepared they have no alternative to plastic bags in the shop (the tiny paper ones are good for spices, dried fruit etc, but not the things I want to get in larger quantities.) 

So I refuse the plastic bags, and put every thing straight in my tins. Or their little paper bags. I´d spend way more if they had big paper bags, so maybe they´re doing me a favour!

Scoop Away stock it all. Literally. You name it, they have it! It´s one of the best places to shop PALL I´ve ever been!  and it´s here, on my door step.

Then when I get home I transfer them into my ever-growing glass jar collections…

My house mate bought one of these large funnels for pickles she makes. It comes in very handy to transfer my stuff into jars.

Glass needs to be kept in a cupboard rather than on the shelf ideally. Goods don´t like too much sun light I´m told.(Though not too much fear of that in Bristol at the moment!)

Sometimes I do come back with more paper bags than I´d like. (As in today for example!) In which case I re-use them and then use them for compost. I need to find more tins!

These are just a few examples.  Let me know of other places in the UK and we can add them to the Plastic Free Directory.

I can´t take credit for the recipe. This is the link for the original,  Banana Flapjacks. Enjoy!

Good luck! And remember, every refusal adds up!

 

 

New Year. New You!

Or, as was the case, New Me! And a (slightly) new Deirdre Me. I´d won a 60 minute day out with Comic Oh Deirdre Me, & what a fun-filled day out it was!

We went along to her night Nincompoop Bristol´s Silliest Alternative Comedy Night, in December. Deirdre Me was so much fun when the chance came to win a 60 minute day out with her, I wanted that day out!  I put my best effort in, and I was the best of about 12 people to do….. nothing.  Not as easy as it may sound! From a choice of 3, I pulled, New Year New You. She must have known. (she assures me the others were different!)

We had our 60 minute day out the first week of January. This is the awesome montage Deirdre Me put together and showed at her latest night at the The Wardrobe Theatre

That´s the video, and captures our day out just brilliantly!  I´m gunna talk how we got to the subject of plastic, and how it brought an unexpected twist in our day out…

You´ll notice at the end of the video (you´ve not watch it?! Why not?! Go on watch it. Oh Deirdre Me puts a lot of effort in for those two minutes, making it very funny.)  she´s written:

When you´ve got friends you don´t need (so much) plastic.

It´s a New Year and I´m a (slightly) New Me. Thank you Michelle.

I´ve never thought of it like that. Ever!  But I think Deirdre Me has hit on a something, I´ll get on to that…

On the day we meet the sun was shining and the sky was blue. January in Bristol, it is known!  Deirdre Me asked to meet me at no.10 on a certain street. That street had 3 number 10s. What´s that about?! When I found the right number 10 we were opposite a huge graveyard. As Deirdre Me explained in no uncertain terms. That´s where were gunna end up, so might as well enjoy ourselves!”  She has a point, a very good point!  Indeed we are… so we might as well!

We then went for a walk, where she explained the new me was waiting….

10 minutes later and we were here. Deirdre Me wasn´t to know, but my plastic-dar did kick in at this point…

We sat down in the cafe & had a cuppa tea, in real cups! With real spoons. Amazing.

There she asked a few questions to get to know me. She said, “who´s your hero?” “I have a lot of heroes…” “No, name ONE!” “OK… Beth Terry.” “Beth who?!” “Beth Terry, as she lives a plastic free life, has an amazing blog and has written a book and everything!”  “Oh, I saw a women on Facebook this morning that does that kinda thing here in Bristol.” “You saw that?! Wow! Errrr that´s me.” ” Oh yeah!!! So it is. Oh… (penny dropping) …I brought you here to buy you a new you… Lets see if we can find something… not plastic!”  The challenge was on!

We larked about. We got dressed up, took photos, created bit of a scene… mooched around the shop amazed at all the tat they sell. Most, plastic. But not all. There was a glass jar section Deirdre Me had to drag me away from!  .

When Diedre Me was quizzing me over tea she´d asked what else I wanted from 2016? I´d said, more self belief. That may come as a surprise to people who don´t know me. 2015 had been an incredible year for Being PAll. But for me?  The last couple have been life changing emotional one´s, yes amazing things have happened, but – without going into it to much – my personal life changed…possibly partly due to my lack of self belief… who knows!  So yes 2016 is about moving forwards, personally, as well as PALL.

New Years, they have a way of making us consider…. especially as this was the last in my 30s!  I´m pleased to say, it´s slow but it´s happening…. So Deirdre Me wanted to buy me a present to capture this, but she was struggling. Getting me what she wanted, or what I wanted?

We left empty-handed. Deirdre Me put this mirror – which she REALLY wanted to get me – down. As well as all the plastic, it was 20 quid I did point out!

Having been there best part of an hour, we found more entertainment in the foyer, in the way of a dog kennel and little cars…!

We then went home via the Graveyard, going in this time. Graveyards naturally have a way of making us consider. Oh Deirdre Me couldn´t have picked a better location.

We found more fun on the street!

And then we went for power juice at Matter Wholefoods.

So did Oh Deirdre Me buy me that present…. Yes she did!  But she thought about it and got it at a charity shop!  Which I appreciated very much. And gave it to me at her first Nincompoop night at The Wardrobe Theatre, so every day when I get ready I can remember our fun-filled day out! and how 2016 is New Year, New You. (I´m suppose to write positive stuff on it in lipstick she also gave me, but then I can´t use it so I´m not… shhhhh!)

Did she go back and buy some tat to hand out to her audience? Yes she did! But, she said not half as much as she might have, and she didn´t get a plastic bag. Which is awesome, as my readers know by now, every refusal adds up.

 

I started the post with Oh Deirdre Me´s original quote;

When you´ve got friends you don´t need (so much) plastic.

It´s a New Year and I´m a (slightly) New Me. Thank you Michelle.

I think Deirdre Me has hit on something. We had so much fun without buying anything. Even though we´d never meet before!  When you´re having fun, who needs to buy plastic tat?!  Of course we all need plastic, that´s the world we live in. But we don´t need so much, I survive Being PALL (Plastic A Lot Less).

That is made easier as I think of all the friend´s I have made because of plastic pollution.  First online, such as Beth and now in the flesh here in Bristol. And the friend´s I already had, who have stuck with me and encouraged me along the way, and new friend´s I´m making who support me. Also how it´s pushed me to shop local, and well as loads of other advantages. Yes, at times in the beginning it was frustrating I´m not gunna lie!!  But I think that was more to do with me than my friends…!

Now, I thank plastic pollution for the connections it brings me.

Thank you Oh Deirdre Me to a brilliant start to 2016. New Year, New Me!

Remember, Every refusal adds up!