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Vegan &/or Raw

Bread, Breakfast, Lunchbox, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw, x For Freezer x

Vegan Banana Bread

Coconut blossom sugar is a great sub for anyone looking to keep blood sugars a little more subdued. We’re not looking at a health food here – just a less evil variety of sweetener than that bad white bitch. This new exotic sugar is tastier than white sugar, and sufficiently pretentious to earn bragging rights with that annoying athletic dude in your office.

True disciples carry little dinky pouches of coconut sugar around in their hemp-woven tote bags, to sprinkle into beverages and conversations during the day. Let’s all blame Gwynnie (a favourite hobby of my husband’s).

Coconut sugar’s unique minerally taste comes from its modest stash of, erm, minerals. There’s a snifter of potassium, iron and zinc in there, causing great pandemonium among the glitterati in LA.

Aside from its titillating nutritional profile, this is one very tasty sugar with an equally spectacular price tag. So the fantastical fairy tale ends there I’m afraid. Gram for gram, it’s more expensive than quinoa hand-harvested-by-Justin-Bieber.

 

vegan buckwheat banana bread

 

 

2016 Banana Bread (egg-free, vegan, gluten-free)

When my nippers hound me for something trashy, I like to make this banana bread and drizzle dark chocolate over the top. The result is comically hypnotic. That’s because bananas and buckwheat go magically well together. They are the Amy and Brian of the breakfast table. One is naturally sweet, the other robust and burly. Add to this, coconut sugar’s spell, and you’ve got yourself a new BF.

And look, if the coconut sugar is a step too far, you can use fine rapadura sugar or muscovado. I won’t mind. Much.

 

100g extra virgin coconut oil (for vegans) or ghee, room temperature
160g coconut sugar
350g or 4 bananas, mashed
Pinch sea salt
1 tablespoon psyllium husks, soaked with 3 tablespoons plant milk (an egg replacer)
4 tablespoons natural soya yoghurt or any plant-based milk
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract
200g buckwheat flour or brown rice flour (220g sprouted spelt flour is spanking delicious. Regular spelt flour will require only 180grams. Wholegrain flours can have very different levels of absorbency)
1 teaspoon baking powder
Dusting of oats, to top (optional)

 

Fire up your oven to 180C.

Then beat the fat with the sugar. Add the mashed bananas, salt flakes, gooey pysllium ‘egg’, soya yoghurt or milk, and the vanilla extract. That’s your glue.

Tumble in the remaining ingredients (flour and raising agent). Top with thinly sliced banana if you have any leftover. Scrape into a large 25cm loaf tin, lined with non-stick parchment. Dust with oat flakes if you have some. Bake at 180 degrees for 60-70 minutes, until it doesn’t wobble in the centre. This banana bread doesn’t overcook too quickly, so relax if you left in in 10 minutes overtime.

Remove from the oven and let it settle for 5 minutes before ejecting from its tin and letting it to cool on a wire rack. This bread keeps really well all week in a bread basket, covered with parchment. When it gets old, a scrape of butter helps keep each slice moist.

 

 

In other news …

Very psyched that Jamie Oliver tweeted my flapjack recipe as part of his “10 Healthy Snacks to Kickstart 2016”. You can check his list out here:

 

Breakfast, Lunchbox, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw, x For Freezer x

Xmas-Laced Energy Balls

No need to straddle a packet of biscuits to nurse that stinking hangover.

When these energy balls are programmed into your festive calendar, you’ll jumpstart your battery faster than immediately.

I made them on TV3’s Seven O’Clock Show tonight, so you can watch the demo here with the inimitable Lucy Kennedy (love her wicked humour).

 

1 1/2 cups (225g) sticky Medjool dates, stones removed

1 cup (140g) walnuts (Lidl have great ones)

1/4 cup (20–25g) raw cacao or cocoa powder

3 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil

1 teaspoon spirulina powder (optional)

Pinch sea salt flakes

4 drops of culinary-grade orange oil (or zest from 1 unwaxed orange)

3 tablespoons goji berries, very finely chopped (optional jolliness)

 

Pulse all the ingredients except the gojies in a food processor, and not a blender. Whizz until the nuts clump together in a large dough ball. One minute should be about right. Taste and decide if it needs more orange oil to mask the taste of spirulina.

Make 20 golf ball-sized truffles or 30–40 smaller ones by rolling some dough between your palms. Place on a non-stick tray and chill until relatively firm. Once set (about 30 minutes), you can trying rolling them in the bright red goji berry dust. Raw cacao powder or desiccated coconut work well too, but the racy colour of gojies is freakishly festive. So I like these.

I pop some lolli sticks into the energy balls at this stage, so my nippers can enjoy them too.

Store in the fridge and grab on the run. And highfive my 13 year old neighbour Chitra, for sparking the inspiration for this recipe!

 

xmas laced energy balls

 

Photography by Joanne Murphy

An adaptation from The Virtuous Tart, Irish Cookbook of the Year 2015

Breakfast, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw

Thanksgiving: Star Anise Poached Pears

christmas healthy recipes

 

Happy Thanksgiving my little health fiends!

Poached pears look so impossibly gorgeous perked up on their plate, dribbling with boozy sweetness (like your favourite batty aunt by 4pm every Thanksgiving). These ones have star anise which helps with digestion and feel achingly good after a big meal.

Do them 1-3 days in advance so that you can sit back and enjoy everybody else’s chaos. Devastatingly tasty with thick Greek yoghurt, soya cream (pictured) or home made coconut yoghurt.

 

pears star anise poached
 

Red wine poached pears with star anise
Serves 4-8

450ml dry red wine
3 tablespoons maple syrup, date syrup or brown rice syrup
1 orange
1 cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1 star anise
4 firm, ripe conference pears

Bring the red wine, your chosen syrup and the juice of 1 orange to a rolling boil. Add the spices, letting it simmer for 5 minutes while you peel the pears. I like leaving the stem intact and slicing the butt off the pears to create a flat base. Gently place the peeled pears in your poaching liquid, cover, and simmer for 20-25 minutes. It’s useful to turn the pears every so often to ensure even colour.

Remove the saucepan from its flame, uncover and cool with the pears still upright. Once cool, cover and chill in refrigerator until dessert time. Remove the pears delicately from their liquid and leave at room temperature. Meanwhile, reduce the poaching liquid over a medium-high flame for 25 minutes, until the liquid is more viscous and slightly syrupy.

Serve the pears on individual plates, and mmmmmizzle with the licky-sticky poaching liquid, a dollop of yoghurt or cream, and some mortifying Christmas photos.

 

 

 

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Until then! xxx

 

 

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You can continue to access my recipe drops over on Substack.  Hope to see you there, and to continue frolicking on this veggie-fueled dance floor.