Thursday, August 23, 2012

Grain Free Banana Bread

First, if you're a woman, and you haven't read this.... well, read it. Explains why you can have a flat tummy but still no ass like Anne Hathaway in the Dark Knight rises (*Drools*)  
Yep. If the world was thrown into turmoil and you didn't have steady access to food 'cos the zombies were camped in the supermarket or something, you could still support two people. Man can just selfishly look after himself and lift something heavy. But your booty has TWO FLIPPING HUMAN BEING'S NUTRITIONAL NEEDS COVERED. YEAH.

Also I'm working on creating a perfect paleo-ish cookie. If you try and tell me paleo cookie is a little bit of an oxymoron, click here.
Cookies are awesome. 
My goal is to make a cookie that both the dough and the baked cookie taste like the flour/sugar/butter thing other cookies have going on. No ridiculously expensive blanched almond flour I NEED COOKIES BEFORE I'M A MILLIONAIRE. No "stir in some cacao nibs into cashew butter". I'MA SORRY THAT'S JUST NOT COOKIE DOUGH.
Achem. Sorry. I feel passionately about my cookie dough.

Oh yeah here's the banana bread recipe. I do not exaggerate: this is the best banana bread I have ever had. The same day I made this, I also made a "normal" highly-rated recipe from the internets... and it sucked. This didn't. Enough said.

Oh yeah and I updated my grain free coconut bread to include an almond option. 




Grain-Free Banana Bread

250g Coconut
2 eggs
1/4 C milk + (1/2 tbs flax + 1/2 tbs chia bran) or (1 Tbs either flax or chia bran) or 1 extra egg
1 tbs Organic pastured butter
1/8 C honey
1/4 C dates
1/2 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tbs apple cider vinegar
Ground Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves
~ 2 large bananas

Process coconut to butter. Take it easy on your processor (I killed one doing two batches of this)
Add dates, process well.
Add eggs, milk, honey and butter, process well
Add bananas, process
Add spices and raising agents, process.

{Optional: drizzle with honey and cinnamon before baking}
Bake at around 200c for about 1 hour (Like I've mentioned before, I have a silly oven.)
Sorry about the shizzy photos; I was too lazy to charge my camera and had to take this on my phone. The loaf didn't last long enough to wait for the said-charging (-_^)

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Choc-Blueberry Crumble *Breakfast Soft Serve*

First let's just put this put there: Soft serve with no frozen bananas in sight. The world does not need another banana soft serve variation. 





I just read an article about Marilyn Monroe diet. Why am I telling you this? Well for an evening snack 
she would have hot fudge sundae, and she said: "I'm sure that I couldn't allow myself this indulgence were it not that my normal diet is composed almost totally of protein foods." By" protein foods" she means raw eggs whipped in milk for breakfast and broiled liver with a few carrots for dinner. No lunch. Errrghh.


If only Marilyn had this recipe, she could have a protein AND ice cream. In a delicious form. That's totally healthy. Actually I guess by her justifications she could then have two a day; this healthy protein ice cream for breakfast and ice cream sundae in the evening.

Now I like the sound of that!


By the way, the creation of this ice cream was completely by mistake. I've killed yet another blending device so I couldn't make a morning breakfast smoothie. (That's 1 blender, 3 stick blenders, a coffee grinder and a mini food processor so far). So I just chucked some frozen blueberries and protein powder in my food processor with the plan of adding minimal liquid instead. The thing that makes this recipe though, is that coconut cream- not milk- was chilling in my fridge after I made curry last night. What resulted tasted like a mixture between frosting and soft serve. 

FROSTING AND SOFT SERVE. 

FOR BREAKFAST.

To make this more fancy, I turned this into my second favourite gelato flavour: Choc-Blueberry Crumble. All while keeping it breakfast worthy. 
Yes I'll have both a trophy and medal, please.


I personally think this taste better when just made. More like frosting. But you can freeze this too, and you don't even need an ice cream maker, just give it a whip about 5 hours after you put it in.


Choc-Blueberry Crumble Breakfast Ice cream
No added sugar, Dairy Free Option, Egg free, Grain free (gluten free), Nut free option**.
High protein, Low carb, Lotsa good fats


For 3 serves:

3/4 C protein powder *
1/4 Cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 Cup coconut cream, or more as needed (only the cream part)
1/2 C frozen blueberries 

Process everything until combined. Start with the minimum of coconut cream. If your mixture just goes crumbly, add more cream by the tablespoon.
  That's it for the ice cream. You can eat it as is or continue on for more yummy-ness

For the blueberry sauce:
1/4 C frozen blueberries
Microwave blueberries for about 20 secs, until just defrosted, mash with a fork to release some juices.

For the Crumble
1/2 Tbs coconut oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp coconut cream
2 tbs almond meal
Mix together all ingredients (melt coconut oil first if not already runny)
Microwave for about 1 min - 1.30. Then mash with fork. This should form a buttery crumb easily.

Top your protein ice cream with crumbles and blueberry sauce and dig in! 
I reccommend making the sauce at the time you're going to eat it as it will make your ice cream icy if you mix them together and freeze. The crumble is cool though, you can chuck that in the freezer.

(I ran out of crumble for this photo and tried using breadcrumbs to give the same look....Silly me)


*Note on Protein Powders: For this, I used a mildly chocolate-flavoured whey protein. I've also made it with Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer, which is denser so it tasted less like frosting. You can use any neutral-ish flavour cos the cocoa should cover it. 
Use your dairy free protein powder to make this dairy free...Oh and pleassseee make sure you're using a healthy protein powder. No crazy artificial stuff.  Mine has like 4 ingredients and I just grabbed it from Woolworth's, so they're not that hard to find!


** leave out the crumble to make this nut free. Or invent your own healthy crumble.