Banana & Muesli Bread With Natural Yoghurt and Maple Syrup

 I've been on a bit of a hiatus lately -a bit of an unintentional break from the old blog. Lots of cooking has happened since my last post, but sadly, no time for photos and sharing. While i haven't been at the screen, I'll have you all know that I have been having a lot of fun! I've moved in to a beautiful mud brick house a little way from my work (where i was previously living) and have been having many a fun time in the sunshine. It is now well and truly Spring! Lots of work and lots of training and a new found passion for rock climbing.... watch this space!

Anyway, that's what I've been up to and I really have been meaning to update you all with a new recipe. Today's is spontaneous  I hadn't planned to cook today or even blog for that matter, but it all worked out so well that I might just share what happened in my kitchen this afternoon.

Banana and Muesli Bread Ingredients
1/3 cup. Almond Meal
1/3 cup. Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Rye Flour (or Gluten Free alternative)
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 cup. Mixed Muesli (oats, nuts, seeds, dried fruit etc)
1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Nutmeg
1/2 tsp. Ground Ginger
4 Very Ripe Bananas, mashed
3 Eggs, beaten
3 tbs. Natural Yoghurt
1 tsp. Vanilla Essence
1/3 cup. Coconut oil melted
1 tbs. Maple Syrup (optional)
1/4 cup. Milk of choice

Method
Preheat Oven to 180-200 and grease a medium sized loaf tin.
In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients. If you do not have muesli, use rolled oats and throw in some sultanas. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas and add all wet ingredients, saving the coconut oil until last. Combine the dry and wet ingredients together and mix through the melted coconut oil. Fill the loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until a skewer comes out clean.

Serve with natural yoghurt and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. 
 Enjoy this Beautiful Banana Bread for Breakfast, Brunch, or just Because (how's that for alliteration?!)

Chai Spiced Pear and Coconut Icecream

This is the easiest ice cream ever. I have an ice cream maker, but i didn't even bother for this recipe. Stew, blitz, freeze, eat. The pears are easily interchangeable with any other sort of stewed fruit like apple, rhubarb, plums, apricots and the list goes on... There's no dairy and no added sugar in this recipe either, just the sugar from the ripe pears. You might even feel okay about eating this ice cream for breakfast... YEAH!

Stewed Pears with Chai Spices
3 Soft pears
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
1/2 tsp. Ginger
1/2 tsp. Cardamom powder
1 pinch Salt

Chop the pears roughly. In a saucepan on a low heat, add pears, a splash of water and spices. Cover and simmer until the pears are soft . Don't worry too much about how they look, you'll be blending them anyway. Allow the pears to cool completely.

Icecream
1 1/2 cups Stewed Pears (or stewed fruit)
3/4 cup Coconut Cream

In a food processor, blitz the pears and coconut cream until combined. Scoop in to a container and store in the freezer. Stir your mixture thoroughly every 30 minutes, 5 times.
Coconut cream freezes pretty solid so remember to take it out of the freezer up to 30 minutes before serving if you don't eat it all in one go!

Dark Chocolate Coated Cinnamon Oat Biscuits

Last weekend, i stumbled across an ANZAC biscuit recipe from Wholehearted Eats and got inspired to bake again... I'm a bit obsessed with my mate oven at the moment.
The recipe seemed really straightforward, just like an ANZAC recipe should be and although alternative ingredients have been used to substitute white flour, butter and refined sugar, the traditional wonderful-ness of the good ol' ANZAC hasn't been altered. I must give credit to Wholehearted Eats' blog and her beautiful recipes and photos.

I've decided to step away from the whole ANZAC theme though and call these Oat Biscuits. I don't want to offend anyone with the non-traditional-ness of my recipe, plus i added cinnamon and chocolate for winter warmth... don't think that was readily available during war times...

I prepared these biscuits in my room. I wish i got a photo of me on the floor of my bedroom, stirring and measuring and rolling out biscuits. There's oats all over my carpet! I got home from doing some groceries and was in a bit of a rush to get out again for an afternoon tea I'd planned with my aunties, but when i got home, the cleaner was there. I was trying to tiptoe around her, but cooking in the kitchen wasn't going to work out so i gathered everything and proceeded to put the ingredients together in my bedroom. Not baking the biscuits wasn't an option either- I'd be thinking about them all day! The cleaner was probably wondering where in the world i pulled a tray of biscuits from when I came back in the kitchen to put them in the oven.... I gave her a taste of the finished product though so any qualms she might've had with me must now surely be settled.

 Ingredients
Cinnamon Oat Biscuits
Makes 10
1 Cup Rolled Oats
1/2 Cup Spelt Flour
1/2 Cup Unsweetened Dessicated Coconut
1 tsp. Cinnamon 
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp. Raw Sugar
1 Tbsp. Rice Malt Syrup or Maple Syrup
4 Tbsp. Coconut Oil (or butter, both room temperature)
1/2 tsp. Bicarb soda
 2 Tbsp. Boiling Water

30g 75-85% chocolate, chopped and melted

In a bowl combine oats, spelt flour, coconut, cinnamon, salt and sugar.
In a separate bowl combine the syrup, bicarb soda and boiling water. 
With your hands mix the syrup mixture and coconut oil into the dry ingredients until combined. Roll into small balls and flatten gently, but not too much!
Bake in the oven on 180 degrees for around 10 minutes or until golden brown on top.
Leave to cool. The biscuits will be quite soft when you take them out of the oven. Don't be deceived- they firm up once they start to cool. Beware you don't over cook them!
In the microwave or over a double boiler, melt the chocolate.
When the biscuits are cool enough drop a spoon of the melted chocolate on to the top of each biscuit.

Middle Eastern Barley and Brown Lentil Salad

 I've been trying to keep a balance between sweet and savoury recipes on the blog to give you a bit of variety. It's so easy to post desserts because they always look so pretty for the camera and it always seems to be more of an experiment to make otherwise sugary, floury, buttery recipes a bit healthier.

Today I'm giving you the 'B Salad'- Brown lentil, Barley and Broccoli (plus a few other letters of the alphabet chucked in there.) This salad has a bit of a Middle Eastern feel to it with the dried fruit, pomegranate molasses and spices.
This salad acts as a whole meal in itself. It covers all bases- a protein, something crunchy, something sweet, something sour and something green! 

The Ingredients:
*this is really a 'do-it-how-you-like' kind of salad. Find what you have in the fridge and pantry and go wild. If you cover the bases i mentioned before, you'll probably nail it*

1 cup cooked barley, cooled
1 400g tin brown lentils or 1 cup fresh green or brown lentils- boiled and cooled
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp sumac
2 tsp ground cumin
1 bunch parsley finely chopped
1 bunch mint finely chopped
1/4 cup sultanas or currants
 Half a broccoli- florets cut small and blanched
7-8 sugar snap peas cut small
1 big handful baby spinach leaves salt and pepper to taste
juice of one big, juicy lemon
big drizzle pomegranate molasses
good drizzle olive oil  (good applies to the drizzle and the oil)
1/4 cup pumpkin and sesame seeds toasted

 Bring 1 cup of barley in about 2 cups of water to the boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until soft, but firm. You still want the barley to hold a nice texture in the salad. Drain any excess water and rinse under cold water to cool. Do the same with your lentils if using fresh.
Combine the barley and lentils in a large bowl with the spices, herbs and sultanas.
Place the brocoli in boiling water for about 30 seconds and transfer in to ice water to stop the cooking process. Add broccoli to the salad with sugar snap peas and spinach.
Add lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper.
Give the salad a good drizzle of pomegranate molasses and toss well.
Sprinkle with toasted seeds and serve!

Halfway through enjoying my salad I forgot that i wanted to add soft goats cheese. If you're keen. Try this salad with some goats cheese or feta!

YUM!