Oatmeal Flax Crisps

Here is a simply wonderful dessert that is full of healthy ingredients. It is actually closer to a candy bar than anything. These are our family's favorite treat now that Cindy's made them a few times. Incredible tasting according to all who've tried! Enjoy.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 cups Gold Forest Rolled Oats
1/2 cup Gold Forest Golden Flax seeds
1/2 tsp. baking powder

In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; stir in sugar and vanilla and cook for about 2 minutes or until bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in oats, flax seeds and baking powder; mix well. Press firmly into greased 12x8 baking dish. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool; cut into bars. Voila.

This is a highly addictive treat that will win you much adulation at the next church or school bake sale...guaranteed.

On a note, Cindy thought that the flax and butter made these "greasy" so she tried it with 2 cups of oats...it just turned into a granola...good, but not a bar. I didn't mind the buttery appearance at all. She wants to try it with Organic Agave syrup and then add some more oats, but to me, it works just fine as is.

Cindy got this recipe from the Canadian Living Cooking Collection recipe book titled "Muffins and Cookies". The 65 tastiest recipes for muffins, cookies, bars and squares.

Spring Seeding 2012

Garreth and a friend filling the small drills

The seeding season went fairly well. Between Chris, me and Dad we managed to get our fields tilled and seeding in record time this year. A full week earlier than last year. Even with our fields spread over creation, three people helped with the logistics of moving equipment and keeping things progressing. Son Garreth even got in some good tractor time helping out with cultivation and harrowing. He also helped here and there with cleaning out the seed drills and filling them between crops. We bought an old end-wheel seed drill for spreading Red Clover Seed in one of our fields. Our big drills don't have a grass box for such a task so it was necessary to purchase this old drill. It also worked well for seeding our smaller plots with the specialty grains. 

We are trying a few different things this year. As I mentioned earlier we planted some Red Clover. We did this as an underseed for our Oats and our Gold Flax. This will act as a nitrogen fixer in the soil for next years crop. We will plow it under next spring or perhaps this fall.

 Bags of Red Fife Seed

A few different wheats went into the ground this spring too. Red Fife, Park and Spelt. All three are heritage varieties and the Spelt is truly heritage as it is known to have been grown 6000 years ago!

Breaking Hayland

A lot of effort also went into breaking a piece of old hayland across the road. It is around 40 acres. Breaking hayland takes a lot of time and effort. The sod is difficult to break down into viable seedbed. We probably should have taken some time last fall to at least run over it with the chisel plow. But, we managed to get it seeded into Oats/Clover. Hopefully we will get a half decent crop of oats out of it and it will be ready for wheat next year.

Now, we gratefully watch the rain fall on newly seeded fields. What perfect timing! I finished seeding and it started raining the very next morning. The only things left to do is a little bit of harrowing on the oat seed, another disc of the field where the Hemp is going and then seeding Buckwheat in June. Fingers crossed for a warm, dry summer after some June rain. That's all I can do now.

flax is blooming

Here is a picture of part of our field of Organic Golden Flax. Flax is my favourite crop in the summer when it is blooming. This is an ok crop of flax. When it is a great crop, the fields are solid blue for days on end...lovely.

July 2011 crop tour

Just finished with the little patch of summerfallow...trying to get rid of thistle and wild buckwheat. Up on the tractor tire for a better view of the field of organic wheat. This, as usual, is Park Wheat. Park is the main wheat we grow for high protein baking.





This is the view down the driveway of our home property. A pretty nice crop of organic Gold Flax considering the abysmal weather we've had all year long. Drought in April and May without a drop of rain meant that the seed sat in the ground for weeks trying to germinate, followed by unrelenting rain in June and July which has now drowned large patches of crop.

flax quenelles recipe!

This is a nice email I received from a customer of ours that I met at market last weekend...Sorry Angel, but I don't know much about egg substitutions...perhaps somebody out there has a suggestion?

Thanks for the recipe Angel!

Hi John & Cindy, makers of amazing grains!!!!

 

I was just at the market telling John about an amazing recipe I recently discovered.

This recipe was found at a Vipassana meditation retreat, of all places.

The recipe was called Flax Seed Balls, but being a foodie, I prefer to make quenelles!

 

 

The measurements are for raisins, Gold Forest Grains Organic Golden Flax seeds and sunflower seeds, measured at a ratio of 1-2-3 respectively.

(I ended up with about 6 cups, which made a HUGE lot of 'em!)

 

Put these in a bowl with just enough water to cover. Cover bowl and leave on the counter overnight.

 

The next day you can add cinnamon, vanilla, carob, etc. and then blend until smooth. )I used an immersion blender, worked great.)

Some folks might like to add some maple syrup or other sweetener, as they are mildly sweet.

 

Roll into balls or make quenelles, roll in flaked  coconut. EAT! (You probably already know this, but, organic flaked coconut is insanely inexpensive at Earth's General Store!)

You can also freeze them, which is what I did, I eat them semi-frozen. SO delicious AND healthy!

Unfrozen they are very soft which may not be a desirable texture to some.

 

I am going to experiment more with the recipe, I think there are endless possiblilities,  these would make an elegant dessert if they were plated with some berry coulis, whipped cream and a smash of shaved chocolate!

 

While I have your attention; I went to your blog, but didn't know how to comment there, not too computer savvy moi!

It looks very interesting, will visit more often and check out fellow foodie Kevin Kossowan, as reccomended by John.

 

FINALLY!- As I mentioned today, I am currently lacto vegetarian, and wonder if you can reccomend a way to make your wonderful pancake mix sans eggs? Do you think I could use coconut or almond milk?

 

Grazie mille!!

 

Angel