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!