Feeding the freezer

M cooked up a big batch of chilli last night, padded out with carrots, celery and huge amount of inky black turtle beans. Half of this is now sitting in nicely portioned tubs in the freezer for later in the month. Meanwhile I made a huge vat of chicken stock using the frozen carcasses of the last three roasts and a variety of vegetables and herbs. We've frozen this in ice cube trays making it easy to reconstitute later. It's most satisfying in some primitive way to stock up for the future, a bit like a squirrel burying his nuts I suppose.

In addition I made a new batch of granola, playing around with flavours and trying to reduce the sugar content a little. This one has a bit of an arabic feel to it, hence the pun with the name.....

Moorish Granola
450g rolled oats (I use Jumbo but whatever takes your fancy)
120g mixed seeds (sunflower, linseeds, pumpkin and sesame)
100g walnuts
100g pistachios
100g almonds
125g date syrup
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
150g soft dried apricots (chopped)

Mix all the dried ingredients (including the salt and cinnamon but not the apricots). Whisk together the date syrup and oil and add to the dried mix and stir very well to combine and bake in a preheated oven for 20-30 minutes at 150 degrees, turning regularly so everything has a chance to toast. Allow to cool before stirring in the chopped dried apricots. The date syrup is very dark and will turn everything quite brown so just make sure you keep an eye on it whilst in the oven.

I bought my date syrup from a health food shop but you can also get it in shops specialising in middle eastern food. This does not make a very sweet granola (even though the date syrup alone is very sweet) so you could add some runny honey or agave nectar to it if you wish.