In case you missed out on the previous instalment of the never-ending chain of unnecessary and self-indulgent musings, I’ve set myself a challenge to cook stuff using the leftover ingredients I need to clear out of my fridge and pantry. I compared it to Ready, Steady, Cook,except, for some strange reason, no television network is broadcasting it. So I’m giving it to you in written form.

This week’s challenge ingredients include:

Half a jar of cranberry sauce:I used this for Christmas Day snack offerings, which were turkey snags, brie cheese and cranberry sauce shoved into mini dinner rolls. The flavours were all there. It was a classic festive combo that can’t really go wrong… except it wasn’t all that popular. I guess it was because I cooked everything the night before, which meant the cheese melted and then solidified again and the beigeness of the sausages made these things look like decaying finger mini hotdogs. I feel they would have been a hit at a house party at like 1am.

Dried cranberries:I bought these for a homemade stuffing and would eat them sporadically with a handful of nuts, but had gone off them for a while.

Vanilla chai teabags:These were an impulse buy one a grocery run before going to a weekend getaway. I didn’t even open the box on the trip but I eventually tried one and found the vanilla flavouring too… chemical-y.

Important notes:I think the biggest takeaway message from this one is that cranberry sauce is not really a sauce, it’s a soft jam and could easily be spread on toast. But that’s a lot of pieces of toast to dedicate to just getting rid of some cranberry goo, so I decided to clear it out in one fell swoop. The plan was to make jam drops, based on my oaten scone things as the biscuit.

Here’s how to do what I did:

The first thing to do is get one cup of milk – I used cow’s milk but, by all means, use soy or almond or rat milk if you prefer – and tip it into a small saucepan. Then rip the paper off three or four vanilla chai tea bags and add them to the milk. Turn the heat up to a low to medium level, and let the aromas waft in a way that make you feel super wholesome, because there are few things more wholesome than gently warming milk on a stove top.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. I used the fan force setting, but you probably know your oven better than I do, so listen to your gut when it comes to preheating.

Next, get out your food processor and blend three cups of oatsinto a grainy meal. Tip this into a mixing bowl and add three teaspoons of baking soda.

Next, add a teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and nutmeg, because those were the spices listed on the cranberry sauce jar. I also added a nervous shake of allspice into the mix, because I apparently can’t handle a recipe without the stuff.

Then rub in exactly 30 grams of butter into the mix with your fingers. You could probably add more butter, but that was all I had left in the fridge. Obviously, I went out and bought more though, because I can’t actually live without a steady supply of butter on hand.

Next, throw in two tablespoons of brown sugarinto the warm milk until it dissolves.

Tip the milky mix into the bowl, stirring with whatever implement you prefer. I used a spoon, but anything stick-like will do.

Freak out that the mix is far too watery to be clumped into biscuity-balls, and chuck in exactly 63 grams of dried cranberriesand another cup of oats.

Curse yourself for overcorrecting yet again, before crackingan egginto a clear glass, to check for half-formed chick foetuses.

Lightly beat the egg by fishing out a small shell fragment with your finger before stirring it into the mix.

By now, you should have a goop that’s firm but not impossible to manipulate into clumps. If not, you could either add more milk or oats until you get the consistency you want, or just eat the mixture straight from the bowel in front of an episode of Keeping Up Appearances. Who am I to judge?

Roll the mixture into balls and use a small spoon to create little wells in the clumps.

Scoop out the contents of half-a-jar of cranberry sauce, dropping the festive jam into each hole until you’ve used it all up.

Bake for seven minutes before rotating and baking for another 11 minutes. Once they get slightly browned, they have the structural integrity to contain the cranberry sauce and can safely be removed from the oven.

Allow to cool slightly before hoeing right in, because the jam will be pretty hot.