Banana Bread

Today’s Deceptively Delicious recipe is Banana Bread. The hidden ingredient?

Cauliflower

My son LOVES it! He obviously has no idea what’s in the bread other than bananas. The book even says that (despite the brown sugar in it), it works for any time of day, from breakfast to snack to dessert.

WHAT?! Breakfast? How can that be?? Well, it does have cauliflower and bananas in it…

(I didn’t get a pic of the full loaf because we immediately dug in and I forgot till after it was half-gone.)

In pararenthesis are the changes I made for a gluten/dairy-free version that I could eat (except the olive oil which is merely the kind of oil we always have).

Ingredients:

• Nonstick cooking spray (fake butter)
• 3/4c whole-wheat flour (brown rice flour)
• 1/2c all-purpose flour (allergen-free)
• 1/2tsp baking soda
• 1/4tsp baking powder
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1/2tsp cinnamon opt
• 1/2c firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
• 1/4c canola or vegetable oil (olive oil)
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 1/2c banana puree
• 1/2c cauliflower puree
• 1tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat 9×5″ loaf pan, or 2 mini pans, with cooking spray (fake butter).
2. In bowl or zipper-lock bag, mix flours with baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, if using. Set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, mix sugar and oil until well combined. Mix in egg whites, banana and cauliflower purees, and vanilla. Add flour mixture and mix just until combined.
4. Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 55-60 minutes for the large loaf, 25-30 minutes for the mini loaves. Let cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then turn the bread out of the pan to cool before serving.

It’s absolutely delicious!! My son is really constipated all the time too so it’s super helpful in helping him poop.

What’s your favorite kind of sweet bread?

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Sweet Potato Pancakes

My son is inhumanly stubborn about what he’ll eat. I thought my husband and I were stubborn (and we seriously are) but the Turdlet far surpasses us. If he doesn’t want to eat something, he’ll starve himself until he starts throwing up and can no longer easily eat anything.

So how to feed veggies to someone who will starve himself before he touches a veggie?

My cousin solved my dilemma and I love her forever for it.

Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld

In it are “normal” recipes that most kids love. They all have secret ingredients though that kids can’t taste – veggies and fruit. The secret is to puree them.

I’ve never tried pureeing before, even when my son was a baby. Other mothers pureed their baby’s food; I bought Gerbers. It probably would’ve been cheaper to puree, but I’m still happy I bought Gerbers. Less fuss and easier to take on trips.

It’d difficult to puree with a blender by the way. I’m hoping to buy a food processor soon because this pureeing veggies thing and hiding it in the food actually works.

I’ve tried 2 recipes so far because they’re easy and I wanted to test this stuff out to see if it worked on the Turdlet before getting tons of ingredients to do more complicated recipes. So far my son looked at the Deviled Eggs (delicious by the way) and said, “Ew! Gross!” He wouldn’t touch them but I figured he wouldn’t. I made those for myself and my husband. The Sweet Potato Pancakes, however, he ADORES.

So! Here it is!

Ingredients:

• 1c water (I use Silk Vanilla Almond Milk Protein & Fiber)
• 1/2c sweet potato puree
• 1/4tsp cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice (opt)
• 1c pancake mix (I use Bisquick Pancake and Baking Mix – Gluten-Free)
• nonstick cooking spray (opt in my mind)
• 1tbsp canola or vegetable oil (I use olive oil)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix the water (almond milk), sweet potato puree, and cinnamon/pumpkin pie spice (if using). Add pancake mix and stir just to combine – the batter should be lumpy.
2. Coat a griddle or large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set it over med-high heat. When pan is hot, add oil, and spoon the batter onto griddle or pan, using 1/4c batter for each pancake.
3. Cook until bubbles form on top of pancakes and the batter is set, 2-3 minutes. Then use spatula to flip pancakes and cook them until golden brown on the other side, 2-3 minutes.

Oddly enough my son doesn’t sticky syrup all over his pancakes so he eats them plain. I, however, like a little butter on mine to liven the flavor so I spread fake butter on them. I use the light buttery spread that has flaxseed oil from Smart Balance. I can’t say for sure if it tastes like butter because I haven’t had butter in so long but I think it does.

My son’s favorite pancakes are chocolate chip pancakes so I add about 1/4c of chocolate chips into the batter after I’ve cooked about half of it so my husband and I don’t have to have them.

I’ll be trying different recipes soon.

How do you get a stubborn person to eat right?

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Gluten and Dairy-free Pizza!

If someone had asked me a couple years ago what food I couldn’t live without I would’ve said meat pizza and chocolate. I grew up on pizza (among other junk); it was my absolute favorite of anything I could eat and I would’ve chosen it for any meal on any day. In fact, I lived off mac & cheese, pizza, and diet soda for an entire semester in college. Another semester it was ramen.

Yeah, I was really healthy.

And then last winter I found out I had a gluten sensitivity and was lactose-intolerant. No more pizza.

WHAT???!!!

What kind of cruel god allows us to create pizza and then makes me unable to eat it?? It was the end of the world as I knew it. But I still ate it.

And suffered the consequences every time. My parents and husband can attest to that.

Eventually I stopped eating it altogether because it got to be too much for me but I missed it so much. I indulged once this winter for the first time in half a year and boy did it taste like heaven. I waited till the end of the birthday party so only my son and the car would deal with the side effects but I was spared the worst making it a regret-free indulgence.

WOO!

But the past couple days I’ve been sighing over the lack of pizza in my life. I’m sure if I had ignored it like I usually do the craving would’ve gone away in a day or two but I REALLY wanted pizza. So I went to the store and dug around in what I call the “special” section of the store. What did I find? Allergen-free pizza crust mix and crumbly goat’s cheese.

Holy Mackerel! THERE IS A GOD!!!

Gluten/Dairy-free Pizza:

• Bob’s Red Mill Pizza Crust Mix (2 tbsp olive oil, 2 eggs, 1.5c warm water, mix)
• Crumbled Goat’s Cheese
• Tomato paste
• Black Olives (sliced)
• Spinach
• Mushrooms (sliced)
• Garlic Powder

I spent an hour making this pizza. It’s not pretty, it could’ve used less tomato paste, and the goat cheese took some getting used to but it was worth it. By the end of my first piece I was accustomed to the sharp taste of the cheese. It’s no meat pizza but I love these particular veggies and it was gluten/dairy-free so I have no complaints whatsoever. I could definitely get used to this pizza.

Best part is that I didn’t burn it or undercook it! Go me! Woo!

My normal time limit for cooking ranges from 10-15 minutes. 30 minutes is pushing it and I should be baking a dessert in that case. To spend an hour making a special pizza (one that my husband decided he really liked as well and he’s not a pizza lover) means that I REALLY WANTED THIS PIZZA!

Is this something healthy to eat? Perhaps not but it’s an innocent enough indulgence considering the things we can indulge in these days. And come on! It’s pizza that gluten/dairy-sensitive people can eat! What’s not to love about that??

Do you have difficulty finding foods specific to your dietary needs? How do you get around these obstacles?

Blueberry Empanadas

After trying to stomach a dairy-based soup the other night and nearly vomiting all over the place, I lamented yet again that I cannot eat dairy or gluten products. I don’t really care about soups; the real kicker is that I get to pass by the breads and pastries in the store and can’t get any.

My husband has a potluck coming up soon and there are a few people like me (except worse) so I wanted to make something tasty that we could eat. It’s usually pretty difficult to find safe things to eat at a potluck because most people don’t think about the allergens they’re putting into their food. Let’s face it – why think about it if it doesn’t affect you?

I found a simple recipe for Blueberry Hand Pies (empanadas) posted by Carol Kicinski at Simply Gluten-Free and tested it out the other day. Here’s what I learned:

• don’t bake wax paper at 400 degrees – it burns and sets off the smoke alarm
• lightly flour your work surface when rolling out the dough
• don’t over-fill your pie – it will explode

Blueberry Empanadas:

Ingredients:

2c blueberries

1/4c sugar

1/2 lemon – juiced and zest finely grated

2tsp cornstarch (or tapioca starch)

1 box (7.5oz) Chebe Original or All-Purpose Bread Mix

3 large eggs

2tbsp melted butter or vegetable oil

Directions:

In a saucepan combine 1 1/2c blueberries with 1/4c sugar, lemon juice and zest. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes or until blueberries are very soft and start to burst. Combine cornstarch with 2tbsp water and stir into blueberries. Bring back to a boil and let boil until mixture thickens (about 30 seconds). Add remaining 1/2c blueberries and let cool completely.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat.

Stir together bread mix with 2 eggs, 2tbsp oil/melted butter, and 1/4c water. Knead until smooth (about 1 minute). Divide dough into 6 equal portions and roll into balls. Sandwiched between wax or parchment paper, flatten a dough ball into a disk and roll into a 6″ circle. Spread 2 heaping tbsp of cooled blueberry mixture on one half of dough, leaving a 1/2″ border at edge. Fold dough over to form a half circle. Pinch dough edges together, fold over to crimp, and place on prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining balls.

Using a fork, poke holes in the top of each of the pies several times. Whisk the last egg with a splash of water and brush on top of each pie. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 minutes or until crusts are lightly browned. Let cool.

Servings: 6

This recipe is gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free. Those are the only allergens I can remember right now. I used cornstarch because I had some and didn’t want to spend extra money just for tapioca starch. I also used Arrowhead All-Purpose Baking Mix instead of the suggested Chebe Original or Bread Mix. The “butter” I used is a buttery spread so it’s really a fake butter made with vegetable oil. Tastes the same to me. At least, I don’t remember how real butter tastes so I assume it tastes the same. hehe

I got to use my grater for the first time since I bought it about 2 years ago. Yay! This recipe also allowed me to finally buy a rolling pin. I was super excited to try it out! My husband was impressed that I made the dough all by myself instead of it being premade. He missed seeing me look all house-wifey with a rolling pin and kneading dough.

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Banana Rice Cakes

Here’s my favorite snack recipe that actually works nicely for my breakfast as well. This recipe is gluten-free, non-dairy, soy-free. Whatever else free it is, I don’t know. Maybe free of all allergens. Definitely free of eggs. Check the labels to make sure.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 2 plain salted rice cakes
• maple almond butter

Smear the almond butter on the rice cakes then slice up the banana and add that on top. Voila! Very simple and nutritious.

I stick with plain rice cakes that have been lightly salted because they’re gluten-free and non-dairy as per my dietary needs. I don’t mind plain almond butter. It can be super yummy as well depending on the brand you get. My brands of choice is MaraNatha and Open Nature. For me, the plain almond butter from Open Nature is tastier than MaraNatha but I hear it’s usually more expensive. I must’ve gotten it when it was on sale. My maple almond butter is from MaraNatha and is super good. The maple flavor does not come from maple syrup so the sugar content isn’t as high as you’d think. It comes from maple sugar.

I find this recipe very filling either for a snack or for breakfast. Although perhaps for people with better diets than mine would find one rice cake sufficient for their appetite. If that’s the case, slice up part of the banana for the one rice cake and eat the rest on its own. Actually, that fills me up very nicely as a snack too.

Or, of course, you can leave the rest of the banana for another time. I got this recipe from a friend of mine who teaches Zumba. I was hard up for healthy snacks and needed new suggestions so she told me about this recipe that she uses for a snack. I loved it and months later still am not tired of it!

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Breakfast Smoothie

I’m not a nutritionist and I know very little about correct nutrition. I eat the types of things I’m advised to eat and I substitute foods particular to my dietary needs. I’m not a picky eater – I’ll eat almost anything that’s put in front of me. That is, I used to do so. Now, however, my body has changed with the last 15lbs I’ve lost and I can no longer tolerate gluten or dairy products. In the attempt to lose more weight, I decreased my sugar intake so much and for so long that I can no longer handle sugar the way I used to either.

Some people may think this is a bad thing but I can only say that I’ve gotten used to it and have found that gluten-free and non-dairy food can be just as yummy if not yummier in some cases. Here’s one recipe I found that not only caters to my dietary needs but is also a very healthy meal to have for breakfast.

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• 1/2c – 1c strawberries
• 1-2 handful fresh spinach (probably 1-2c)
• protein powder
• 1c unsweetened almond milk

Add ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Pour in a glass, drink, and enjoy! The amount of protein powder differs with each kind of powder and on your own taste of how much you want added. I use a chocolate soy protein powder. It recommends adding 1 scoop (comes with own scoop) to 8oz of milk but then says 1 serving size is 3 tbsp of powder. The scoop is about a tbsp I think though I’ve never measured it. I add about 1-2 scoops because my drink usually comes out to almost 2c.

Also, peaches are a really good substitute for strawberries. Blackberries too. Those are my fruits of choice but any desired fruit can be used in place.

I’m probably going to be changing this recipe soon because my body is telling me that I need to tone down on sugar yet again. I’ll probably limit the amount of strawberries/peaches to 1/2c. Lately I’m feeling sick in the mornings after breakfast. No, I’m not pregnant. It’s my body’s reaction to too much sugar. Dehydration and then sugar on an empty stomach can do wonders.

In the words of Mort from Madagascar 3, “My tummy is speaking to me!” And then he throws up pink frosting. Very gross. My son and I love that scene. In fact that’s what happens to me when I eat more dairy and sugar than I should (ex: 1-2 cookies). I have paid the price on multiple occasions.

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