Awesome Banana Coconut-Flour Bread

vegan, GF

This is the best coconut flour recipe I've tried to date! Only 8 ingredients if you count salt, and it's deliciously and naturally sweet with banana and dates. The texture is kind of crumb-y but in a pleasant way and holds together fine. I baked the batter into muffins. It doesn't rise at all, so feel free to fill up the cups, but of course that will entail longer baking time.

recipe and picture from Popsugar

Oat Bran Pancakes

Ovo-lacto

We were treated to these pancakes while visiting Rich's sister in Singapore. She's since moved back to the UK, but we've adopted the recipe and love it. It is a breeze to make and delish.

Fresh or stewed fruit, chopped nuts, yogurt, maple syrup are good sweet options. I think you could easily top with some sautéed spinach and mushrooms and a sprinkle of cheese for savory.

Loose Recipe

1. Mix oat bran with yogurt, and an egg or two, depending on total amount. You don't need that much batter, they are very hearty.
2. We were fed with an addition of turmeric and rosemary that went fine even with a sweet topping, so we do something similar. Turmeric adds a pretty color and is a health booster. A little goes a long way.
3. Make 'em big or small and top as your heart desires. Yum.

DIY Energy Bars - vol. 1

Vegan

This has been a revolution around here!

In short, if you have a food processor... go make yourself some energy bars. There's hardly any reason to buy them except convenience. You can customize them exactly as you like, keep only the good-for-you ingredients and save $$. And there are sooooo many recipes and types out there... Wild! So here begins my Energy Bar journey. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do all that whizzing and taste-testing...

Imperative for successful bars:
Most of them don't need any baking and are held together by the sticky combination of something like a nut butter and a liquid sweetener, or ground up dried fruit, or a combination thereof. Follow these steps to make sure they stick together:

1) If your dried fruit is not moist, briefly soak it in a little hot water to plump it up

2) Once your mix is in the pan it'll be setting in, PRESS, PRESS, PRESS it down. It will be sandwiched between plastic wrap or parchment paper, so use your hands, a rolling pin, the bottom of a glass- whatever it takes! It must be compact.

Here is the first round-up of recipes I've tried that I will make again.

1. Almond Coconut Energy Bars

based on Minimalist Baker's Healthy 5-Ingredient Granola Bars

These are the closest to a successful commercial granola bar that I've tried so far. They have a pleasant crunch, are sweet but get balanced out by the nuts and oats and are easy enough to make, though do require a bit of time with the toasting, assembly and all that dish-washing after.


2. Soft Banana Oat Bars

based on Adventures of Our Family's Banana Oat Bars

This is probably the healthiest recipe of the bunch and in some of my friends' words "tastes like it" haha... However, the health nuts loved them. They are soft and with the extra banana I put in held in no problem - these do require baking. If you want something sweeter, add more dried fruit or some sort of sweetener - a glug of maple syrup or maybe sprinkle on some brown sugar?


3. Lemony Oat Bars

based on The Vegan 8's No-Bake Lemon Tea Oat Bars

In the world of endless snakc bar recipes, these are really unique! I loved the fresh lemon flavor! My German lemon tea was kind of strong and a bit strange, so I only used 5 tea bags instead of the 12. Next: try with my fave lemon tea of all time: Celestial Seasonings Lemon Zinger and make into flat bars in a shallow pan (rather than thick ones in a loaf pan, as per recipe).


4. Green Tea and Goji Berry

based on Vegan Crunk's Matcha Green Tea Almond Bars

Also very unique, delicious and easy-peasy! My ingredients were:
- dates, prunes and (very soft) goji berries, adding up to 1.5 cups
- 1/2 cup ground flax
- 1/3 cup mix of nuts and pumpkin seeds
- 1/4 cup matcha powder (I think this can be reduced by as much as half the amount - it's quite strong, even for me who adores green tea flavor and will make the bars less crumbly)

Another take: dried figs and prunes, toasted almonds, ground flax and chia, reduced green tea


5. Carrot Cake Bites

based on My Whole Food Life's Carrot Cake Larabar Bites

My mixture was kinda dry and giving my food processor trouble, so I added coconut water... a little too liberally. I ended up with pumpkin-pie-filling texture and even ground up oats could not save the day. So, I rolled these into sticky balls and they are delicious, if not exactly portable ;)


6. Crumbly Granola 

before-baking-photo: based on Real Healthy's Granola Bars 

Haha... so, these did not stick together whatsoever! I mean, in clumps, yes, so Rich and I devoured the resulting granola with a spoon because it was so damn yummy! I think the problem was the mixture was too liquidy - next time try omitting the coconut oil or reducing to a bare minimum, especially since I find it burns very easily. These also require baking.


7. Gingery Pumpkin Seed Chews

oops forgot to take a photo! picture and recipe both from Florida Coastal Cooking's Gingery Pepita Energy Bars

This recipe wins hands-down for super-fast no-mess. I think I was done in ~10 minutes. Very yummy! Now I need to source some more crystallized ginger! - or make it ;)

Another take: walnuts and prunes and candied orange peel, coated in hemp nuts. YEAH!

Carrot-Walnut Cake with an Indian twist

Vegan (bananas keep it together instead of eggs)

I've had this recipe bookmarked for a year or even two and finally made it. VERY GOOD! 

The Indian twist is cardamom and the author said it's similar to the yummy Indian dessert called halwa (not to be confused with Arabic halwa made of sesame seeds, which is also fantastic, but different in every way).

I used the lesser amount of sugar and even then felt it was unnecessary, as the raisins and ripe bananas more than do the job. I didn't add the walnut-coconut-caramel topping, which sounds delicious but then would really make this unbearably sweeeeeeeeet. Maybe if I cut all all sugar entirely, topping included? Anyway, it's a keeper!

For another vegan carrot dessert, check out Carrot-Coconut Cookies

Easy Pear Sauce

Vegan

I often make applesauce 'coz it's so darn easy and if you're doing healthy baking, it'll often show up in a recipe to cut down on the amount of oil. Pretty much any fruit puree will do in my experience (these Fudgy Brownies turned out delish with a medley of stewed fruit) and of course are delicious on their own with a spoon, on toast, pancakes, oatmeal, yogurt...

Anyway, we indulged our expat experience recently with a big box of baby Honey Bell pears from Costco, from New Zealand and as they were starting to soften en masse, I browsed again for a pear sauce recipe. Here is a winner - simple, delicious, and it's got my favorite spices. I made it in our Turtle (the slow cooker) but you don't have to - it only takes about 30 minutes on the stove.

I'm getting lazy with taking photos recently... other people just do such a good job!
 Pic and recipe both from Two Peas and Their Pod

Pumpkin Pancakes

Ovo-veg

No kidding, these taste like pumpkin pie!

I didn't take any good pictures, so photo and recipe credit both go to MyGutsy

Pretty easy to make, although they dirtied up 3 mixing bowls and you need the low-carb-lovers-trend-extraordinaire almond flour (which you can make it yourself with a food processor, if not readily available or you're looking to save $).

Actually, you could probably use any flour and it'll work out fine. The 5 eggs could probably hold together a derelict building, let alone a few measly pancakes.


I also recently baked these Pumpkin Spice Bars.

I did use dark brown sugar as directed and they went super dark, so maybe a mix of golden and dark is what resulted in the pretty color below. Anyway, they were good and VERY EASY!

I didn't take any good pictures, so photo and recipe credit both go to Sally's Baking Addiction

That's one Smooth Papaya!

vegan

This can easily double as a dessert!

4 ingredients:
- fresh papaya
- fresh coconut
- ground flax seeds
- Turkish apple tea

ok, I tossed in a slice of lemon just for kicks, but I'm ok with the special bitterness of the rind

Blender Mornings

I have a recent guideline for eating breakfast, which is to have it by 9am. Beyond that, especially after 10am, it's getting much too close to lunch and will overload the body's natural digestive rhythms. (which are primarily focused on:

elimination 4am-12noon ** digestion 12noon - 8pm ** absorption 8pm - 4am,

which is why it's good to have your biggest meal at midday and taper off heavy eating by late evening)

So especially when it's getting later in the morning, or just to have a light, quickly absorbed and easily digested meal, I whip up a smoothie. Some recent creations have involved:

- warm Banana Oat Milk (from Fresh At Home cookbook)

- Papaya smoothies with non-dairy milk and mixed-grains powders (sold here in Taiwan as "hot cereals" to be mixed with boiling water for a super-quick snack or light meal, eg this kind of thing:)

the Chinglish description at the bottom makes it even more enjoyable!

- and today's creation, Banana Mango Smoothie with oat milk, soy protein and greens powder

It was going to be banana-blueberry, but I found the mango looking quite forlorn with black spots on one of its sides, so it was a rescue mission, and a tasty one at that, albeit it ended up being quite sweet, probably the whole-foods equivalent of a sugary breakfast cereal or muffin, so I don't recommend this combo for daily use or for anyone worried about diabetes. I munched some nuts along with it to offset spiking my blood sugar levels.

Then... I blended the rest of the very ripe sweet little bananas and very ripe mango with vanilla ice cream and plopped that into my popsicle molds. Taste test to come.

Carrot Cookies

Vegan
well-received : )
from Helen Nearing's Simple Food for the Good Life

Recent Ayurveda reading told me cooked honey is toxic, so maple syrup it is.
Oven 350-375C

Job's Tears Pudding

Vegan

For those of you begging the question: "Can you make "rice pudding" with Job's Tears?"

The answer is - why, yes, and it's delicious! Quinoa and all sorts of other grains work well too.

- cooked 大薏仁＋小薏仁 (from what I can gather, these are two types of barley, 小薏仁 is pearl barley and 大薏仁 is apparently known as adlay or Job's tears)
- apple, cinnamon, raisins, almonds

Stewed Fruit

Vegan
Rescue Mission: using up past-its-prime fruit or fruit that was disappointing in taste (eg. bland)

Any fruit, fresh and dried is a good combo. Add water, spices and stew away... viola! Topping for oatmeal and pancakes, can serve as a jam-like spread, etc

The before and after. Suggested serving below!