Recipe: Beetroot and rosemary oatcakes could be good for your cholesterol

A friend of mine has been trying to reduce her cholesterol levels and had heard that oats were good for this.
Reducing or avoiding animal and other saturated fats are key to managing cholesterol but fibre is important too and oats have plenty of that. As she doesn’t like porridge, I took up the challenge to make an interesting alternative for her!
The beetroot and rosemary variation are particularly good and they have even more fibre with the inclusion of the beetroot.
The remaining beetroot from the oatcakes can be grated and used as a side, tossed with a little lemon juice or placed on the oatcakes with a little (low fat) cottage cheese.
Basic Oatcake Recipe
Ingredients
125g rolled porridge oats
One tablespoon olive oil
Pinch of salt
90 ml just boiled water
Put 70g of the porridge oats in a coffee grinder and grind until a fine flour is formed and tip into a bowl. Put the remaining 55g of porridge oats into a mini processor and wazz a few times to break the oats into finer flakes. Put these into the bowl with the oat flour and a pinch of salt and mix.
Make a well in the centre and add the olive oil, followed by the hot water. Mix with a fork until most of it is incorporated, then use your hands to mix in the remaining dry ingredients and bring the dough together. It should be a stiff-ish pastry dough.
Set the oven to 180°C.
Lightly flour a rolling board and rolling pin and roll the dough out to about 3ml. Use a 68ml pastry cutter to make rounds and place on a lined baking sheet. Bake in the oven for around 22 – 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly, then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Variations
Peanut Butter Oatcakes – sub the olive oil for 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter.
Spiced Oatcakes – add ¼ teaspoon of each of ground turmeric, chilli powder, garam masala and dried fenugrek leaf.
Beetroot and Rosemary Oatcakes – Cover a beetroot with water and boil until it is just soft. Put 50g of it in a blender with 75ml of the cooking water. Substitute this mixture for the hot water in the basic recipe, heated for 40 seconds in a microwave. Add 2 teaspoon chopped rosemary to the dry oat mixture before adding the water. Depending on how fine the oats are, this may produce quite a wet dough so more oat flour may be needed for rolling. You can use plain flour or cornflour if you are avoiding wheat.