Tag Archives: banana

Quinoa porridge with peaches and bananas

03 Monday Sep 2012

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Quinoa porridge

This is my FAVORITE porridge to eat in the morning now! It’s full of protein and fiber. It keeps well overnight too. Sometimes I make it the night before and reheat in the morning. You can easily make this dish non-dairy by omitting the whole milk and increasing your coconut milk.

What you will need:
1 Banana (Unpeeled and Whole) *I use 2 bananas because I love the creaminess and body it adds to the porridge but it does overpower the peach flavor, so you decide.
25-35 Slices of Frozen Peaches
1 Cup Quinoa
1 1/2 Cups Coconut Milk
1/2 Cup of Whole Milk
1/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1-2 Teaspoon Honey (you decide how sweet you want it)

You can just use milk if you prefer instead of coconut milk.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Place the bananas and peaches on a lined baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes. (Halfway through, I drizzle a little olive oil over the peaches).

Roasted banana and peach

Bring milk and coconut milk to a boil. Whisk a few times to make sure it is not sticking to the bottom of your pan. Once your milk boils, add your quinoa and bring to another boil. Whisk a few times before letting it simmer. Then cover and simmer on lowest heat for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, the milk WILL NOT all be absorbed in the quinoa. This is what you want. You should be able to see some milk when you add your fruit and puree.

Blend fruit

Once your fruit is done, put a little more than half of it in a blender and add your honey, cinnamon, vanilla and a splash of milk (you decide which kind). Be sure to fold the whole fruit and puree to your quinoa and cover until all milk is absorbed about 1-2 minutes.

Add fruit into quinoa

I add a pad of butter before serving but that is optional. Top with toasted coconut and/or macadamia nuts.

Enjoy!
Joy

Nut and Caramel Crusted Banana Cream Pie

02 Tuesday Aug 2011

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I LOVE my mom’s banana cream pie recipe but I wanted to do it a little different, so I changed the crust.

Here is what I did:

Crust:
1 1/2 cups  Vanilla Wafer Cookies (crushed)
2/3 cups of Macadamia Nuts (crushed)
1/2 stick of Butter
4-5 Tablespoons of melted Caramel
1-2 Ripe Bananas

Once I combined the first three ingredients, I pressed them into a pie crust pan.
I covered it and put it in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours with a couple of heavy jars on top to ensure it would be as compact as possible.

After two hours, I took it out and poured my melted caramel on top. You just want a thin layer because otherwise it will effect how your custard sets up.
Put the crust back into the refrigerator for another 1-2 hours. When you are ready to start making your custard, slice the ripe bananas on top of your caramel layer.

Pie Filling:
2/3 cup of Sugar
1/4 cup of Cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon Salt
2 1/4 cups of whole milk
1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream
4 egg yolks (beaten)
1 tablespoon Butter
2 teaspoons of Vanilla Extract

Sift the sugar, salt and cornstarch.

In a *double boiler, combine the milk and cream over medium heat and slowly add your 3 dry ingredients. Stir until thickened and bubbly.

Reduce heat and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat and stir in 5 tablespoons  (one tablespoon at a time) of the hot milk mixture into your beaten egg yolks.
While you are slowly adding your tablespoons of the milk mixture, be sure to whisk constantly.
This is the tricky part. If you do this part incorrectly, you will end up with scrambled eggs! Once you have added all 5 tablespoons, you can pour the egg mixture back into the double boiler with the remaining milk mixture.

Whisking constantly, bring to a gentle boil. This should take 5 minutes (set your timer) then cook it for an additional 2 minutes. If you do not set your timer and you don’t cook it long enough, your custard will not set and you will end up with pudding instead of pie.

Remove from heat and stir in your vanilla and butter.

Pour custard into a bowl and press plastic wrap onto the surface of the custard. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Then you pour the custard into your pie crust and enjoy!

I know this sounds long and laborious but it really isn’t. Each step only takes 10 minutes.
It’s perfect for those days when you are cleaning and doing laundry because you do one part and then go back to your chores. Then you do the next part and go back to your chores, etc.

*I don’t have a proper double boiler, I just use 2 saucepans. The smaller one goes on the bottom.You get the water to boil on the bottom pan and you put your ingedients in a slightly bigger saucepan, which sits non top of the smaller pan.
This ensures that you will not burn the milk. It is so easy to do.

Joy

Cinnamon and Walnut Banana Cake

28 Tuesday Jun 2011

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Two bananas have slowly been turning blacker and blacker on the top of my fridge. Now my flatmates are always happy when they see this happen as they know exactly what it means, it’s banana cake time!

My friend Claudia is the person who originally gave me her banana cake recipe but it’s different every time I make it now. I’ve realised it doesn’t really matter how much of anything you put in it as long as you have walnuts, cinnamon and honey.

This is a really healthy cake and is perfect for breakfast or an afternoon snack. I’m going to guess the weight of the ingredients I used, but please feel free to change them.

What you will need:

2 very ripe bananas (the blacker the better)
3 tbl of honey
50 grams of melted butter
150 grams of flour
½ tsp of baking soda
2-3 eggs
A big handful of walnuts
1 tbs of cinnamon powder
(you can also add raisins)

Pre-heat your oven to 180C. In a large bowl add the bananas and mush up with a fork and add in all the ingredients, there really is no order. You just need to make sure that you mix in the baking soda with the flour. Mix everything together with a spoon.

I usually use my bread tin but I couldn’t find it last night, instead I used a small ceramic oven dish and it rose more than it usually does, I’m definitely going to use that again.

Butter your dish and slightly powder it with flour, add you batter and leave in the oven for about 20 –  30 minutes depending how moist you want your cake.

PS: If your batter is too dry you can add a little milk

Have fun and let me know how yours goes.

Mel

Yogurt with a Punch

26 Thursday May 2011

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I have been making this for breakfast for so long that I forget that most people do not eat yogurt in this way. I kept adding more ingredients over the years so I realize that this may be a bit much for other people to enjoy.

However, I decided to share this with everyone because whenever I eat it, I stay full for about 4 hours. This is unheard of for me because I have always eaten every 2-3 hours. Anyone who is friends with me knows this is true because I carry food with me at all times and when I don’t they all remember the monster I turn into when I am hungry and have nothing to eat!

This recipe has helped me refuel after breastfeeding as well. Because it is high in Protein, Folate, Acidophilus, Potassium and Calcium, I also want to mention that this can be eaten for lunch as well when you are short on time.

Here is what you need:

1 cup Unsweetened Yogurt ( I use Greek, but you can use anything)
1 Tablespoon Honey or Agave Nectar
1 Tablespoon melted Peanut Butter (Has London imported an American brand yet? Please buy Skippy, Jif, Peter Pan, anything American!)
1 Tablespoon Wheat Germ
1 Banana (sliced)

Just combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and enjoy!

Joy