Banana, Sultana and Choc Chip Muffins #FODMAP

Yesterday I was very lucky to spend it attending a full day workshop on Quality Improvement for healthcare, which working for the NHS as part of a project to improve patient safety it was super beneficial and very interesting. I am really lucky to work with a great bunch - and a great Trust which is committed to improving quality to benefit both us staff and patients. I knew the provided sandwich lunch would be a no go on FODMAP but I had planned ahead and took some leftover baked millet & veggies. However, the hardest part was in the afternoon when trays of amazing looking and smelling cakes appeared - there was glossy topped caramellos, fancy cupcakes and lots of other treats and not a single one was suitable! All I could think about was cake!!

So last night after dinner and still craving cake, I decided to try again with some FODMAP suitable baking, last weeks banana bread was not a huge hit but I decided to persevere with a the banana theme, mainly though as I had two very, very ripe ones to use up! After a rummage through my cookery books I dusted off a copy of 'the egg book'. Its not a book I've admittedly used very much but it does have a few good recipes inside... I chose the banana muffins recipe but tweaked it to be FODMAP friendly, also I increased the liquid to allow for the gluten free flour - which seems much thirstier, and changed the honey to maple syrup. I also had no ground almonds so subbed for ground rice too! Oh and I added some suitable dark chocolate chips and sultanas and left out the nutmeg!

The mixture looked quite sloppy and I easily filled 12 cases rather than the 10 stated! I didn't hold out much hope but was pleasantly surprised and it satisfied my cake longing! The resulting muffin was light and taste rather good even if they did stick super well to their paper cases! Oh and as ever I had great fun making a mess!

Make 12 muffins

225g gluten free plain flour (I used Dove's Farm)

3 tsp baking powder

25g ground rice

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

50g light soft brown sugar

2 large mashed bananas

2 large eggs

2 1/2 tbsp sunflower oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

150ml soya milk, unsweetened

3 tbsp maple syrup

50g sultanas

50g dark chocolate chips (check labels for suitability)

Pre-heat oven to 190o

Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and ground rice together.

Separately mix together the eggs, banana, oil, milk and maple syrup. fold into the dry mixture gently and stir through the chocolate chips and sultanas, spoon into prepared muffin cases.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly golden and a skewer comes away cleanly

Spicy Chorizo and Egg Fried Wholegrain Rice

Fried rice in some sort of variation is a staple meal in our household. Fitting easily into a busy lifestyle, its also a great way to use up odds and ends from the fridge too! I really hate wasting anything so it’s a perfect mid-week meal and whilst having spare cooked rice is very handy, it also if not properly chilled and stored can harbour bad things that we really don’t need to eat and whilst it’s a bit of a cheat the Veetee rice trays are a great store cupboard standby! Its quick and easy to make a meal using them and most importantly delicious!

Veetee sent me a box full of goodies (along with some stunning rice bowls that have left me coveting the rest of the range, shown in the last image below!) with the challenge to create a meal using either their Wholegrain or Egg Fried rice trays. Brown rice can be somewhat, earthy and rather too wholesome I find but theirs was surprisingly light and very tasty, stir frying in two minutes meant dinner was on the table in under ten minutes! Very welcome after a late afternoon spent baking all sorts ahead of the weekend to be able to produce something tasty and fuss free!

Now its not often I confess that I have bought ready cooked rice, I find rice so simple to cook anyway its really no bother, plus previous ready versions I have found can be a bit unpleasant texture wise and even worse when they have gone cold. However I was very pleased to discover that the Veetee rice tasted just as good as home cooked rice, exactly as it should be. Its also produced safely and so you can trust that the rice is safe to be re-heated. Cooking for yourself is one thing but when serving to friends and family of all ages you have to be certain of these things! I had heard through friends about Veetee's rice products before how good they were, so it was great to get play with them myself!


Spicy Chorizo and Egg Fried Wholegrain Rice

Serves 2

Quick and Easy

Ingredients:

1 x Veetee Wholegrain rice tray

60g Chorizo, halved lengthways and sliced ¼ cm pieces

2 Spring onions, finely sliced – separate the greener bits into one pile and whitey bits in another pile

½ orange pepper, chopped finely

1 egg

½ green chilli, finely chopped

1 tsp coconut oil

S&P

Beat the egg lightly with a pinch of salt and pepper, stir through half the green sliced onion.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan until melted, add the beaten egg quickly swirling around the pan to form a flat thin omelette. Remove onto a chopping board and roll up tightly.

Meanwhile heat the pan with a little more oil if required and stir fry the chorizo slices, spring onion white parts and pepper for 4-5 minutes or until the chorizo has released its lovely oil and the vegetables are lightly browned and stir through the rice and chilli. Heat through, season to taste and toss together for 2-3 minutes and serve in your pretty bowls or one big pasta plate for your man!

Slice the reserved omelette finely and sprinkle over with any remaining spring onion to garnish.

Mr B's serving bowl!

My pretty serving bowl!

As mentioned at the beginning of my post, fried rice is great for using up leftovers and odd's n ends and this took care of two neglected spring onions, half a pack of abandoned chorizo and the last lonely egg from the fridge and so I am sending it over to Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary No Waste Food challenge, held by Laura over at 'I'd much rather bake Than' this month. (You can see my July round-up here).

As my rice dinner was also super quick to prepare and cook, plus it stretches out a small amount of Chorizo, I am also sending it over to this months Credit Crunch Munch, created by Camilla and Helen, and held by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary for August.

Many thanks to Gemma and Harriet at Phipps, and to Veetee for my samples.

Disclaimer: The recipe and images remain the property of Anne’s Kitchen and must not be reproduced without written consent. I received no payment and all opinions are my own.

Rum baked Peaches with Chocolate Coconut Ice cream for We Should Cocoa

Sometimes I have too much time on my hands. Okay this is rare admittedly but the old brain goes wandering, normally in the middle of doing something else and it resulted in some random googling on my phone in the kitchen (our signal booster box is worth its hassle getting it!), whilst making dinner and the outcome was a tub of chocolate coconut ice cream! I am not entirely sure what provoked me that evening other than this unrelenting heatwave that's slowly cooking me through but it was a good provocation!

Back tracking a little, with regards to one of the recipe components a few months back I posted up an article for Good Housekeeping on creating an alternative dairy and gluten free pudding, in the form of my lush Sticky ginger and Almond rice pudding. As part of its development I had received a box full of free from items, and one of those items was a hot chocolate syrup called Choc Shot…which became the chocolate part of this recipe as it was, well, er easier! *blushing with shame* It also has only 14 calories per teaspoon, 100% natural and low GI and diabetic friendly so you can really tell yourself its a healthy ice cream treat!  

Anyway, despite the heatwave it resulted in me playing around in the kitchen the other night and I decided to make a batch of coconut milk ice cream, using the syrup as a chocolate flavouring, along with some forgotten about meringue nests, after coming up with the idea of some kind of semi-freddo dessert… I managed three lots of hand churning but eventually fell asleep despite the best intentions of some inconsiderate neighbour's doing their best to keep the block awake with their incessant shouting, shrill laughter and loud music, so the next day I had to let it thaw a little for some more half hourly beatings... I think it still needs a teeny bit of work texture wise as its frankly a bugger to scoop out but it worked so well with the baked peaches and so I have forgiven it!

Next on to the baked peach part - Ohmigod where has u been all my life! I took inspiration for this quick pudding from the recent Waitrose magazine, though I pretty much exchanged all the ingredients apart from the peaches as to what we had in the cupboards! Fortunately it still was fabulous and even called for my wicked auntie to comment that I really should be the size of a barrel after sharing pictures on my facebook page! It is fruit mostly...! The sweet soft peach flesh, combined with crunchy sweet biscuit and hint of spiced vanilla rum is a heady concoction and one i feel might just become a regular dish in my kitchen!

Coconut and Chocolate Icecream

1 tin full fat coconut milk, good quality.

8 tsp chocolate syrup

3 meringue nests - not essential - mine dissolved mostly!

Place the coconut milk in a blender and blitz until smooth. Combine the syrup and crumble over the meringue nests, turn into a suitable container for freezing.

Every 30 minutes, take a whisk or fork to the mixture breaking up any ice crystals for about 4-5 times. Ta da!

Rum baked Peaches

These are so quick and easy, and entirely worth making!

2 peaches, halved

2 digestive biscuits, crushed

1 tbsp golden granulated sugar

1 heaped tsp butter

2 tbsp spiced rum

Crush the biscuits in a small bowl or pestle & mortar. 

Then add the sugar and rub through the butter – best to cut into little pieces, until you have a crumble mix of sorts. 

Spoon into the peaches and place on a lined baking tin. Drizzle over the rum and bake for 15 mins @ 180o and serve warm, with the ice cream.

I am sending my lovely pretend its healthy treat to this months We Should Cocoa, held by the lovely Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

Coconut Brownies (Dairy free and relatively healthy too!)

Going back a little while and slightly off tangent but do bear with me here - I decided to look into having my eyesight corrected, and after the initial assessment I couldn't drive for a while due to my eyes having had dye put in them, nor see very far for a short while and so I had to keep local and stumbled across a health food shop, where a lady was promoting a particular brand of coconut oil – it was the first I heard of it – and we ended up having quite a chat about its benefits both nutritionally and cosmetically and.. as it was quite expensive and I was about to part with a rather large sum of money for the surgery I didn't purchase any at the time but it was lodged in my mind ever since.. though if I recall correctly I did leave with a packet of coconut flakes which were a little more purse friendly and provided the topping for these brownies! And in case you are wondering, yes I did have my eyes 'done' and I am very happy with the results!

Coconut Brownies

Moving on, a few weeks ago I received a box of lovely coconut based goodies from Cocafina.  they have a delicious range of all things healthy and coconut based, and following this post I have a little giveaway of some coconuty treats for you so don't forget to come back soon! 

From my box of Cocafina goodies, I used their coconut nectar and coconut oil to make these bad boy brownies. Or should they be greedy girl goodies as they are technically good for you? These happen to be dairy free too so are good for certain dietary restrictions. There is also fruit in them too so you can almost pretend they are good for you, in the form of mashed ripe banana to replace some of the usual butter, in fact there is no butter at all in these – I used just 60g of coconut oil instead for the whole batch! As a result they are certainly lower in fat than regular brownies, always a win! 

To replace the sugar I used their Coconut nectar, which is extracted from the sap of coconut flower buds, its lower GI than compared to regular brown sugar – 35 compared to brown sugar at 64, so far less spiking to your blood sugars. Have I sold them to you yet?

Not really knowing how the coconut nectar was going to affect the mixture, both sweetness and texture wise as I normally melt the sugar, which is more dense – and coconut nectar is the already consistency of maple syrup, nor the coconut oil in lieu of butter, I decided to base these on my banana and rum brownies and hope for the best mostly! My oven is on the blink, and everything baked now gets cooked at what the oven dial says is 210o which in reality is about 170o or thereabouts!

For my first proper experiment they came out pretty darn good. A little fudginess to the texture, crunchy coconut flakes on top with a delicate coconut note mingled with the slightly bitter chocolate. They were popular at work and everyone was intrigued as to what both coconut oil and nectar were, I should of left a card with them I repeated myself so much! They are best left a few hours before diving in to allow the coconut on top to soften and the flavour's to mingle together.

Coconut Brownies

Ingredients:

60g coconut oil

200mg coconut nectar

100g dark chocolate

2 large eggs

100g plain flour

20g cocoa powder 

1 tsp baking powder

2 medium, ripe mashed bananas

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pre-heat oven to 175/ 180o depending on your oven. Prepare a lined 8” square baking tin.

In a saucepan, weigh out the coconut oil, coconut nectar and heat until melted, stir in the chocolate and leave for a couple of minutes to cool slightly.

Mix together the flour, banana, vanilla, egg, baking powder and cocoa powder. Stir through the melted chocolate mixture until just combined and pour into a lined 8” square baking tin.

Bake for about 35 minutes or until it bounces to touch and the kitchen smells like you are in chocolate heaven – it’s a fine line between well cooked and raw so best to check with a toothpick – if minimal crumb comes out its ready. Cool for 15 minutes or so in the tin before placing on a rack to cool fully.

I have sent my bake over to Casa Costello's Bake of the Week post:

Many thanks to Cocafina for my delicious samples! 

All images and content are the property of Anne's Kitchen and must not be used without prior consent.

Smoked Aubergine Puree AKA Baba Ganoush - for Random Recipes & Alphabake A

So this months Random Recipe and Alphabake entry was planned earlier in the week, in good time for the deadline - which is er today.. however I had a bit of a flare and spent two days in a zombie state...these new painkillers sure are strong but if they sort out my hip it will be worth it! It was already fun climbing stairs with a pair of dodgy knees but throwing in the hip is just no fun! I think this week I survived mostly on tea and ready to eat cocktail sausages which are kept in the drinks fridge (my weakness!). 

Fortunately this morning with the rain brought a brighter day after and I actually made it out of the house, albeit with my boyfriend driving and it was only to the garden centre but it was still nice to see daylight! Plus it has a great food hall and I picked up something for my dad's birthday which I better not write here just incase he reads this...

So enough of me rambling - I normally ask my boyfriend to choose at random but he was out and being unable to bend at the time I reduced my selection to the shelf at arm level and methodically counted to ten whilst moving my arm back and forth - the neighbours already know I am a bit special so hopefully just carried on by... the book turned out to be 'Just like mother used to make' which my mum actually did buy for me a few years back. Its full of homely recipes but seems to solely be used for drop scones so it was about time a new recipe was tried from its floury pages! I then as per the chosen letter of A for this months theme, then closed my eyes and moved my finger up and down the tiny A section for a further 10 seconds and out came Baba Ganoush - which is technically B but its made with aubergines and listed under A so it became the chosen recipe! For some reason I have always loved the name Baba Ganoush, it sounds so exotic like some foreign dancer or stage presence!

The recipe itself is a doddle to make, apart from that I have the slowest oven in the world so took double the time stated but it was delicious. B had never eaten it before and in all honesty I wasn't sure if I had but I love anything aubergine'y so really it couldn't be bad... its best eaten with loved ones, the garlic breath is entirely worth it!

I scaled the original recipe down slightly - I always find aubergines vary so much in size - my dad actually picked it up for me as he lives near lots of great little ethnic grocers and was coming around for lunch - and assumed mine was a medium to large sized one and I have scaled the recipe accordingly. I also subbed the extra virgin olive oil for extra virgin rapeseed oil, mainly as the EVOO I have is very tasty but also very peppery and I wanted to taste the aubergine and the latter oil is nice and buttery tasting....mmm butter! And the lemon juice was from a bottle shh!

Also whilst it says to use a food processor, I am lacking this one essential piece of technology and used the liquidiser which worked a treat - if using a food processor don't worry about chopping things up before hand. I finished it off with a little smoked paprika as it made the smoosh a bit more attractive and a little more smokier too!

Makes one bowl of lovely dip/ puree/ smoosh

Easy

1 med/ large aubergine

1 clove garlic

2 tsp tahini

1 tbsp extra virgin rapeseed oil

1/4 tsp salt (I used himalayan)

few twists black pepper

2 tsp lemon juice

Smoked paprika to garnish if desired

If you are lucky enough to have a gas hob, sear the aubergine all over until skin is wrinkled. If like me you don't, place the whole aubergine in the oven, on its highest setting until the skin has wrinkled. The book claimed 20 minutes. Mine was more 45 minutes.. and it burst, guessing that was a good sign it was ready.. place in a bowl and cover, leave to cool.

Once cooled, remove the skin and discard the stalk, chop roughly and place in the blender with everything else. Blitz to form a smooth puree. Taste and adjust accordingly - I added a little bit more lemon and salt to mine to taste. It says to leave it 30 minutes to thicken but my cooked aubergine had been left whilst out for a good few hours and I served it up after about 5 minutes and was perfect for us! 

Spoon the mixture into a serving bowl and sprinkle over a little smoked paprika if desired.  

I served ours with a little fridge raid feast - toasted pitta breads, olives, rosebud beetroots and carrot sticks. B loved it, he did comment that this meal would be something he would never had considered before meeting me. I guess thats a good compliment! It was clean plates all round after!

Overall verdict? A resounding yes to enjoying it now and yes to having it again! I loved its silky smooth texture and little hum of lemon and garlic, definitely a keeper. 

Many thanks to this months hosts for the inspiration to give some love back to the cookbooks: 

Dom at Belleau Kitchen 

Caroline Makes 

The More Than occasional Baker 

Sticky Ginger and Almond Rice Pudding (Dairy and Gluten free)

Allergy friendly cooking with Eating Smart Magazine, from Woman and Home 

Over the past few years I’ve not always been that well but I’ve somehow battled through and as I’ve spoken about before, I think diet plays a huge part  in healing and recovery but when food can be a cause of illness it can be very hard to get back on track. It can be also quite overwhelming to work out what is good to eat – and can be a constant source of anxiety... overall my insides are better behaved than ever before nowadays just by relaxing about food..

The recent diagnosis of Fibromyalgia has knocked me a bit, though not entirely unexpected. Some days I lack the energy to even go down stairs and get something to eat but I’ve been reading up on gluten free diets easing the symptoms and starting to explore that area further. .Whilst I have been tested for Coeliac disease and it was negative, if it relieves symptoms and allows to claim some life back its worth a shot!

Overall its still very much work in progress though and as I love food so much on the good days, its fun to discover new food and drink, and Woman & Home very kindly sent me a box full of free-from goodies to experiment with and a copy of their fabulous Eating Smart magazine to give some inspiration, it is jam packed full of delicious ideas and recipes, including useful product guides depending on your dietary needs.

With dairy, I seem fairly tolerant I just don’t over do it but my lovely auntie can’t have milk anymore, even things like milky rice pudding can make her poorly and I recently stayed with her for a few days and I decided to try and recreate a few favourites dairy free and also discover some new delights along the way! This pudding I made happened to be both dairy and gluten free so suitable for lots of people following special diets.

I have tried a few different dairy free milks with mixed results, I don’t mind soya in things, I rather like hazelnut milk and I had not used Almond milk before this but it screamed pudding to me and I set about recreating a rice pudding to remember! Keeping on the almond theme I chose flaked almonds to create a crunchy topping and sweet fragrant stem ginger to give it a very delicious twist! I think I actually prefer this now over regular rice pudding and my auntie loved it! Which was of course the main reason I made it, fortunately everyone else liked it too and B had seconds. And I may have too….

Sticky Ginger and Almond Rice Pudding

90g pudding rice

1 litre unsweetened Almond milk

60g sugar

2 tsp stem ginger syrup (from the jar)

Topping:

30g flaked almonds

 2 balls stem ginger finely chopped

1 + 1 heaped tsp dairy free margarine/ butter

NB: We had the oven on high cooking dinner but you can cook just a bit longer on the same temperature if you prefer. All ovens vary too so judge accordingly!

Serves 4 generously

Preheat oven to 185o

Grease a suitable baking dish with 1 tsp of the dairy free margarine. Ideally the dish 2-3 inches deep.

Place the rice, sugar, milk and syrup in the dish and bake for an hour. Reduce the temperature to 140o and cook for a further 1 ½ hours or until it has developed a golden skin and most of the milk has been absorbed and the rice is fluffy.

Meanwhile toast the almonds lightly in a dry heavy frying pan, add the 1 heaped tsp of margarine and the ginger pieces, fry for a further minute then reserve to one side, occasionally stirring to break up the mixture, it should be light and slightly crispy. 

About 10 minutes before serving, sprinkle over the top of the rice pudding and cook for a further 5-10 minutes, allowing the ginger to melt slightly into the mixture.

Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving into bowls, making sure the crunchy topping remains on top! It will be very hot to be careful!

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Disclaimer: This post was in collaboration with Eating Smart Magazine from Woman and Home, recipe and images remains the property of Anne's Kitchen. I received products for review and expenses to cover my time and ingredients