Oat Cakes - Recipe

Oat Cakes - top right

Today we had friends for lunch. Our lunch was kind of an end of holidays event for me as I official go back to work at work tomorrow, rather than doing a few little bits and pieces from home. A weekend lunch was also a good opportunity to make something new, along with the tried and true.

We started with a cheese plate with home made Oat Cakes. This is a recipe I have often looked at in one of my Sophie Gray recipe books. The Oat cakes were really nice and screamed out for a really good strong blue cheese.

A Sunday morning visit to my local 'Nosh' provided exactly what I was imagining...after trying a few options of course. They had a Dutch blue on special which provided us a large chunk at a reasonable price. Dried figs were the finishing touch that tied this all together.

Rik and Kim brought our next course Arancini (risotto balls, crumbed and deep fried). They were beetroot and feta flavoured with walnut ground for the crumb coating, served with a delicious thick avocado based sauce.

The next course was rotisserie chickens - on stuffed with fresh herbs and lemon and flavoured with smoked garlic salt, the other stuffed with fresh fennel and flavoured with fennel seeds and salt (a take on a fennel chicken recipe I have made before.
The chicken was served with a quinoa salad, fennel salad and the good old stand by of potato salad.

I decided my home made lemon cordial mixed with gin and soda and lots of ice would be an appropriate palate cleanser...actually I just wanted a chance to have out guests try it...and have one myself.

Our meal was finished with Ambrosia made by Lynn. She had used all fresh berries and had included green grapes which gave an interesting contrast in both colour and texture.

Oat Cakes Recipe
360g oatmeal (I used rolled oats...they seem to be the same thing? or at least similar enough for it to work)
100g plain flour
2 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking flour
2 tbsp sugar
130g butter
200 ml milk

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.
Combine all dry ingredients, add butter then milk and mix for several minutes. This is done easily in a food processor.
Roll out very thin and cut in to biscuits. Bake to 15-20 minutes.