the rain falls hard on a humdrum town

Hello again! The weekend seems to be nearly over, which is strange as I could have sworn it was only Friday yesterday. The grey cloud of rain that's been haunting us this last week seems to have lifted briefly, leaving the most beautiful expanse of blue sky combined with the crisp winter air. It's beginning to look increasingly spring-like, too, which is good as personally I think the Spring and Autumn months are the best of the year.

On Saturday I had to take a quick trip down to Central London to pick up some more bits & bobs from MacCulloch and Wallis. This, of course, resulted in a typical granny-ish outfit of mine made up of my Beyond Retro skirt, top from Absolute Vintage, cardigan from Nutshell Vintage and shoes from Rokit. I'm still obsessed with orange and mustard and so was happy to see that my satchel from The Leather Satchel Company matched the cardigan perfectly.

I also had a little look in Uniqlo and managed to get an Orla Kiely polo neck top for £6. Six Pounds. Orla Kiely. I don't think I can emphasise in words how excited I was.

For some reason, I had woken up at about 7am that morning and decided to follow a recipe for Peanut Butter cookies from Skinny Taste. (See the original recipe HERE) I am a sucker for anything peanut butter flavoured, and so I was kind of hyperventilating when I realised that not only did these taste divine but they also are relatively healthy, coming in at under 100 calories each and containing no flour, sugar, butter or any thing unnatural or particularly bad at all. They're so good, you can even have them for breakfast.

To make the cookies themselves you need two sachets of oats (I used wheat and gluten free ones but any will do) two tablespoons of peanut butter (crunchy and with no added sugar works best) and two bananas. Mash the bananas, and then combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl until you have a smooth, even and oaty texture (with no big lumps of banana!). 

Spoon the mixture onto a lined and greased baking tray, using the back of the spoon to spread the blobs into a more cookie-like shape. Make a little indentation in the middle of each cookie, ready for the filling. The mixture makes about 8 small cookies, or 6 larger ones, although for some reason I ended up making seven.
Put them in the oven (fan, on about 200'c) for about 15-20 minutes, until they are relatively firm and golden. Allow them to cool, before placing a spoonful of jam into the little indentation on the top of the cookie. You could use pretty much anything as a topping, however I opted for strawberry jam, blueberry jam, and nutella. The latter was probably everyone's favourite, but I think all three work quite well.

I'm not a very frequent baker, and despite my love of home cooked food I rarely find the time to make things myself. It was one of my resolutions to cook more, and so maybe this is the start of something...who knows. Anyway, I better get on with all the coursework I seem to have ended up with...I hope you are all having a good Sunday!

ellie xo