Oaty date slices

These are brilliant for lunchboxes, and vanish faster than a particularly fast thing. I found the recipe in Olive's July issue, and tweaked it a little bit.

You'll need:

100g porridge oats
100g self-raising flour
100g butter
50 soft brown sugar
200g stoned dates, chopped
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice

Sling the oven on at about 180 degrees C, and fish out an 18-20cm square baking tin. Line it with greaseproof paper.

Mix the oats and flour together, and tip into a food processor. Add the butter, and pulse until it's all well mixed (you could rub this in by hand, but this is far quicker). Add the sugar, and pulse again until you get a crumbly mix - tip it out of the food processor and into a bowl.

Pour the lemon juice and chopped dates into the food processor (don't bother cleaning it out from the crumble mix, it'll be fine), and blitz until you get a thick, jam-like consistency. You might need to add a little extra water to make it easier to spread.

Press half the crumble mix into the bottom of your tin. Spread over the date jam. Top with the remaining crumble mix, and press down firmly.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, until it's golden brown. Cut into small squares while it's in the tin, and then leave to cool (still in the tin). Once it's cold, you can lift the whole lot out using the greaseproof paper.