Sugar Free, Gluten Free Anytime Muffins

Lately I have felt as though the fun has been sucked out of the kitchen...read labels, bake food I really don't like, and never produce a product that looks perfect anymore. I don't experiment with my own recipes because wasting gluten free ingredients is seriously a crime! But finally I am starting to feel drawn back in. What changed? I started *gasp* buying bread! I finally found a wonderful gf bread recipe that even I liked to eat on a regular basis, but then I found Kinnikinnik....their bread is soft, bouncy, good texture and tastes good. And the best part is that it's less then a $1 more per loaf for me to buy then it is for me to bake (and that's not including my time or the electricity to turn the oven on!). I'm so excited! Plus I've found that Safeway carries their bread, frozen but I'm ok with that! So it's not only good tasting, it's somewhat convenient too. So I've had a few weeks away from baking, I've been gleefully opening bags of bread from the freezer and the sense of fun that the kitchen used to offer me is returning.
Tonight my hubby called me a 'whirlwind' in the kitchen, and it felt good. It's been a long time since I have been busy enough to warrant being called that! What was I making?

Super healthy eat anytime muffins!! Courtesy of Mennonite Girls Can Cook (my new favourite website!!)
They are sugar free, gluten free and packed full of good for you things!

I did not change anything in the recipe except to use ground flax seed and I made them as muffin tops because...well why not? :)

INGREDIENTS
3/4 Cup Almond Flour (meal)
3/4 Cup Brown Rice Flour
1/2 Cup Xylitol
1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp. Ginger
1/2 Tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp. Salt
1/2 Cup Old Fashioned Rolled Oats (GF)
1/2 Cup Steel Cut Oats (GF)
1/4 Cup Flax Seed
1/2 Cup Raisins
3 Tbsp. Oil
1 Large Egg
1/3 Cup Milk (or almond milk etc)
4 Medium Carrots, Shredded
1 Medium Ripe Banana, Mashed

Prehead oven to 400F. Coat a 12 Cup muffin pan with oil (I used coconut oil, it works great!)
Whisk together flours, xylitol, baking soda, baking powder, spices, oats and flax until there are no lumps. Stir in raisins.
Mix oil, egg, milk, carrots and banana in another bowl. Add to flour mixture and stir until blended.

Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 23-25 minutes (depending on your size of pan). Serve warm or at room temperature. To store keep in an airtight container, up to 3 days.
Great with some butter, some cream cheese or drizzle honey on top!


NOTE: I did find that my steel cut oats were still kind of crunchy in the finished product. I think next time I will mix up the liquid ingredients first, add the steel cut oats and let them soak while I measure and mix the dry ingredients/shred the carrots :)

Ice Cream - Banana Cherry

I made ice cream yesterday. No ice cream maker. And then I let both my kids have a huge helping for snack time. No I'm not crazy...its healthy!! And they loved every drop of it!
Its also very easy. The hardest part is believing its going to work and not blow up your food processor/blender  :)

Cherry Banana Ice Cream
 Ingredients
2-3 Chopped Frozen Bananas
Handful of Frozen Cherries
Milk (I used homemade rice milk, but any type will do!)


Put it all into your blender/food processor and process until ice cream forms. Add milk as needed. It will seem like it's not going to work and then suddenly you will have ice cream! 

The cone picture above is definitely soft serve but my kids were too impatient to wait for it to harden in the freezer. If you want scoopable ice cream freeze it for 30 minutes when you are done mixing. I got called out so I never got a chance to see what it would be like. I put the rest in the freezer and now it's a solid block, but I think I should be able to chop it up and put it back into the food processor and soften it up again...hopefully because it was super tasty!!


I think next time I will put the cherries in towards the end to have more of a cherry chunk ice cream. You could also add any type of frozen fruit that you wanted, or banana walnut is also fabulous!

When your bananas are getting too ripe on the counter, break them into pieces and freeze them in freezer bags/containers. They are great for making this ice cream, to add to smoothies or to thaw and make banana bread later! Very versatile and breaking them up before hand makes it easier on your blender/food processor :) and if you need them mashed later, they thaw quicker!

Smoothies!!

Mmmm smoothies! So yummy, cool, refreshing and yes, healthy! My 1 year old has decided she is a smoothie lover so I have been throwing them together a little more often. Really you can throw any type of fruit in, pretty much any quantity you want and add extras to it, but if you like to have a recipe to follow, this is one that I have concocted that we like :)



Ingredients

2 Bananas

2/3 Cup Blueberries

1 Cup Mixed Frozen Fruit (mine had melons, grapes, strawberries, mangos etc. in it)

1 Cup Coconut Milk (I used canned)

1 Cup Plain Yogurt

1 Cup Milk

1/4 Cup Ground Flax Seed (optional)

1/4 Cup Whey Powder  (optional)



My blender isn't the best,  so I blend a bit after every addition, and I had to thaw my frozen fruit first, but it turned out yummy! If you don't like bits in your smoothie then I suggest you leave out the flax, but it does add a lot of health benefits! If you think it's too thick, just add some extra milk and re-blend.



It's like a tropical smoothie. You can taste the coconut, but it's not overpowering, you can taste the banana but it's not a 'banana smoothie'. All the flavours flow together and compliment each other nicely!



Bottoms up!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.2

Spinach Mookshake

Or at least that's what my 2 year old calls it. Mookshake, milkshake, smoothie or green milk....however you label it, it's delicious and it's chalk full of nutrition!! Made with slight modifications from Weelicious.

Ingredients
4 cups (packed) fresh spinach
2 Large Bananas
2 Cups Milk
1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract
2 Tbsp. Honey

Put it all into the blender and blend until smooth. Refrigerates well for a day or two if there is any left over. There's not usually! Sometimes I blend it up before adding the honey and take some out, mix it with some plain yogurt and xanthan gum (you could use other thickening agents) and feed it to my not quite 1 year old as pudding! She loves it!


It's definitely a vegetarian snack, and could easily be made vegan and or milk free. Maple syrup would be a good substitute for the honey, and you could use soy, rice or even almond milk!

Lately anytime I ask my son what he wants for a snack he asks for a spinach mookshake. He loves them that much. I tested it out on some other children this morning, and they were actually fighting over it...fighting over spinach!! Imagine that!

Avocado Shake

I love avocados, but I tend to buy a big bag of them and they all ripen at the same time. It's either make a lot of things with avocados or toss them. As you can tell I opt for using them :)



This sounds like it shouldn't be good, but it is! It's yet another recipe from Weelicious. In case you can't tell I like the site!



Ingredients

1 Large Ripe Avocado

1 Large Ripe Banana

1 Cup Milk (Can use Rice, Soy Etc.)

1 Handful of Ice

Honey or Maple Syrup (Optional)



Toss all ingredients into the blender/food processor (after peeling/pitting the fruit of course!), and blend until smooth. Pour into glasses and enjoy. I like to drizzle a little honey on top for decoration and a little extra flavour. This freezes well as popsicles, but definitely needs a tablespoon or two of honey (or other sweetener) since flavours are never as strong once they are frozen.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Banana Avocado Mousse

This is another recipe from Weelicious. It's wonderfully easy to make and if you have toddlers and babies (so long as your babies are having dairy already), you can serve it to both of them! I made this today, but much to my dismay my kids ate all of it, and I was left with only the spatula to lick :( I think I will have to make a double batch next time! My 2 year old loved that he helped make it (minus where he scared himself by pushing a button on the blender before we were ready to go!), and my 11 month old seemed delighted to be eating the same thing as her big brother. And me? Well I'm delighted that they had a super healthy snack and viewed it as a treat!

Ingredients
1 Banana
1 Small or 1/2 Large Avocado
1/4 Cup Plain Yogurt
2 Tbsp. Milk (Can use Rice, Soy, Etc.)

Put all ingredients into a blender/food processor and blend until smooth (After peeling/pitting the fruit of course!). Then try to get some before your kids eat it all :) 

Anything I make for the kids including dairy I use full fat. My son is on the skinny side and my daughter is under 2 so I just keep it the same for both kids. Plus it makes it extra creamy! My hubby went to the store yesterday for me and I asked him to buy 'high fat plain yogurt', and he came home with 6% baking yogurt instead of the 3% yogurt I had in mind! It definitely added to the creaminess of this pudding!

Baby Food - Mango Banana Chicken Puree

My daughter is 11 months old but still isnt so great with chunkier food so Ive been trying to become creative with her meals. Today I made mango banana chicken puree and she gobbled it up! I even tried some and it was quite tasty :)
Ingredients
1 Ripe Mango
1 Banana
Handful of cooked chicken
Put all ingredients in food processor and process until desired consistency is reached.
I havent tried freezing this yet but I would imagine it would freeze well.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8