Gluten Free, Vegan-Friendly, One-Bowl Banana Bread!

Guys, this recipe amazing. I found the recipe on Pinterest from the Minimalist Baker and have made a few adaptations to cater it more to my own tastes. Its super easy to make, uses only one bowl and tastes amazing! My parents are usually pretty skeptical of some of the gluten free foods I eat, but they tried this bread and said it was some of the best they’ve ever had–gluten free or otherwise. A promising review!

I love this bread in particular because its delicious, low in added sugars, high in fiber, satisfying and, most importantly, its easy on the stomach. A lot of gluten free products that I try can cause a lot of tummy upset, even though thats what they’re supposed to help prevent! I’ve seriously had zero problems with this bread; zero tummy rumbles, zero upset stomach, zero other gross gastro problems that we won’t get into here.

So what do you need to make this heavenly bread?

• 4 bananas, very ripe (you want to see brown spots or have entirely brown bananas for this!)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk, dairy or almond
• 3+ tbsp coconut oil
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup cane sugar
• honey, to taste (use more if your bananas aren’t quite as ripe as you’d like!)
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1 1/4 cup gluten free flour (I use Glutino’s all-purpose flour and its great–no ashy taste of gritty texture!)
• 1 1/4 cup oats
• 1 1/4 cup
• 3.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

To make this recipe vegan, you can substitute the dairy milk for almond milk and substitute the egg for with a “flax egg” or a “chia egg” by combining one tbsp chia or flaxseed meal with water and allowing to sit for five minutes. Add in where you’d usually add the egg and you should be set!

Directions:

1. Peel your bananas and mash them with a potato masher or a big spoon. In the meantime, add 3 tbsp of coconut oil to a small pan or bowl and melt. 
2. When thoroughly mashed, add sugars, egg, vanilla, milk, melted coconut oil. Whisk or beat thoroughly to combine. Add honey to suit your tastes–I used about 1 tbsp here. 
3. Add in cinnamon and stir to incorporate. 
4. Add in the rest of your dry ingredients–flour, oats, almond meal, baking soda and salt. Stir until well combined. 
5. Put into the oven and bake for ~1hr if using a loaf pan. If using a baking pan, cook for 30 minutes and check loaf regularly for done-ness.
6. Allow to cool slightly (although I prefer this bread when its warm!) and then serve with butter and honey or, if you’re feeling like dessert, Nutella.

And there you have it! This is one of my all-time favorite recipes, and it would be a great thing to bring to a party as an appetizer or dessert. I could seriously eat this bread all day long– its hearty enough for breakfast and its delicate enough for a snack or a dessert. Seriously, once you guys make this you’ll never go back to eating any other kind of banana bread again!

Same idea, new direction!

Lovely people of the internet!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, and I promise I have good reasons for that! Coming home from my year of studying abroad was incredibly difficult, and coming back to sub-par housing and a completely inefficient/terrible kitchen made cooking anything of value difficult. In addition, I’ve recently learned, through trial and error, that I’m moderately gluten intolerant, which has made it difficult for me to make a lot of the foods I’m better at cooking and, for the time being, has made baking a non-thing. I don’t know if any of you have tried gluten-free baking, but its basically the worst and most difficult science project ever. And, seeing as I’ve never been very good at complex scientific endeavors, I’ve found that learning how to do GF baking is basically impossible, and at the very least more hassle than it’s worth for the time being. I was just starting to get the hand of normal baking!

Trying to do GF baking has left me with a lot of questions.  What is Xanthan Gum and why is it so expensive? Why does my pumpkin bread taste like I’m licking a festive, autumnal-flavored ashtray? How much money am I going to have to spend before I actually create something edible? And for the time being, I’m going to go ahead and let those questions just sit unanswered because I live near a co-op that bakes/imports tons of tasty GF baked goods for me so that I don’t have to put myself through the torture of doing it myself.

Unfortunately, eating and gluten free is a task in its own right, and I’m only just starting to get the hang of it. Of course there are some awesome GF substitutes for “normal” foods, but they tend to be expensive and often aren’t especially good for you. So I’ve been experimenting with some recipes at school, trying to find out what works and what doesn’t. Lately I’ve been in a bit of a rut and have been eating a lot of soups and snacks and basically eating my entire weight in clementines on a weekly basis. But I know that I’m going to be facing a much more difficult/awesome problem soon: as some of you may  have read on my travel blog, I have a trip booked for this summer to Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and possibly Lao. Although I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to manage fairly well in Southeast Asia, where few foods contain gluten anyway (except pesky soy sauce!), I’m actually more worried about eating GF on the cheap in Australia and New Zealand.

Which brings me back to my main point– a new(ish) direction for the blog! I will be trying out some recipes that will translate well to cooking in hostels and use my blog to compile a list. I’m going to say in advance that the recipes might be a step down from the recipes I’ve posted to date; the whole goal is to make them manageable in situations in which I might only have one pot and one frying pan and one bowl, not to mention on a time crunch. Simple, cheap, healthy, wholesome gluten-free meals that can be made on the fly and don’t involve a lot of obscure, single-use ingredients.

So there you go! As time goes on I may try and modify some old recipes to make them GF, but as mentioned above with my pumpkin bread endeavor, this may be more difficult than I initially thought it would be. Hopefully I’ll be getting something up for you guys soon!

-Natalie

Out of Town!

Hi all!

I’m in Burlington visiting friends for the week, so I wont be making many posts for the next few days. When I get back I’ll post a delicious pork chop recipe, though, so you can look forward to that! If I do post anything this week the photo quality will likely be bad as well as I’ve left my swanky camera at home.

Happy cooking! =]

No-Cook Marinated Tomato Pasta Sauce with Linguine

This is a super simple recipe that takes almost no time to prepare. The most work-intensive part is peeling and seeding the tomatoes, which gets faster the more you do it. Perfect for a summer night, especially if you have some tomatoes to use up from the farmers market! Note: you’ll need 30 minutes to let the marinade sit beforehand.

Ingredients:

1 lb linguine

6-8 small tomatoes or 3 large ones

1 clove garlic, chopped

3-4 tbsp chopped basil

olive oil to cover

2-3 oz of goat cheese (or fresh mozzarella)

capers, 1-2 tsp

Directions:

1. Bring a small pot of water to boil and submerge the tomatoes for 30 seconds, then remove. Slit the skins with a knife and peel off.
2. Halve tomatoes and squeeze them gently to remove pulp and seeds. Chop tomato flesh. (For more help, see link in THIS post.) 
3. Chop the tomatoes and the basil. 
4. In a large serving bowl, add tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil. Salt and peper to taste. Add some sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes if you want to. Allow to marinate for 30 minutes or longer. 
   
5. Cook pasta until al dente in salty water. Drain, then add to tomato mixture.
6. Add cheese and toss. Serve immediately.

Upcoming Recipes!

So I know posts have been coming slowly lately, but I’m cooking up some more stuff today after trying to get some meals together for my parents in a hurry. Here’s a peek at whats coming up:

Spiced Pumpkin Bread

No-Cook Pasta Sauce

Guacamole (try #2!) 

Butternut Squash Soup

Hope everyone has a great day! Posts will be coming soon, I promise!

Good Food, Good Mood

Over the course of the last week I’ve been alternating between having really good eating days (in which I eat enough fruits, veggies, fiber, and protein to keep me happy) and bad eating days (where I’ve chosen fast-food hot dogs, split french fries, and milkshakes). And don’t get me wrong– I love me a good hot dog. But I’ve found that when I choose lower quality processed foods over higher quality, home-prepared foods, I can really feel the difference. 

The other night, when I ate said hot-dog meal, I went to the gym afterward and was amazed at how difficult everything felt. I was exhausted, bloated, lethargic, and completely a-motivated. But when I went to the gym yesterday after my high quality “protein” shake, which is a Greek yogurt, bananas, peanut butter, chia seeds and a touch of honey, I had much more energy and felt less bloated and gross. I was able to go for much longer and my heart rates were much more stable and within my normal range, as compared with the erratic results I was getting the night before. 

I hope to use that as a nice reminder for myself to keep up with the healthy theme of my blog, although I’ve found that most things homemade tend to make me feel better than things that I purchase ready-made from the store. One of the few exceptions to this is the Whole Foods Produce Guacamole, which is super delicious and much better than my own guacamole semi-failure. 

Last night I prepared a tasty (but somewhat time consuming) tomato basil soup with parmesan and cheddar, which was super tasty. I also made some cornbread that was less than delicious, but I think it was because my corn meal was … three years past its sell-by. Oops. I’ll definitely be getting the tomato soup up on the blog today, however, and hope to get my favorite pumpkin bread recipe prepared today as well. 

Recipe Queue

Just as a heads up for whats going to be going on the blog for the next few days, I thought I’d post a brief outline delineating the details of the recipes I plan to make for the next couple of days. I’m really trying to beat the heat by not baking much, so most of these will be either no-cook or quick-cook recipes. I’m not sure what order I’m going to make them in, but here’s a rough outline:

Vegan Veggie Stir Fry

Pasta with a Home-Made Italian Sausage Tomato Sauce

DIY Whole Foods Guacamole

Hummus with Veggies

Mushrooms with Soy Sauce Glaze

Refreshing, No-Sugar-Added Drinks (to help beat the heat!)

If anyone has any types of recipes they’d like to see on the site (IE more vegetarian/vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free,  baked goods, etc), please let me know! I’d love to start making things that people are looking to learn more about or that people hope to use to expand their dietary palette.

Menu for the Week

For the next few months, I’m going to be doing a lot more structured meals and recipes for my family dinners. I’ve decided that I’m going to need to make a weekly menu to try and reduce the number of trips to the store, so heres my rough outline for the rest of the week:

Wednesday: 

Main dish: Marinated flank steak

Side dish: Pan-Roasted Root Vegetables

Side dish: Goat Cheese Garlic Crostini

Thursday:

Main dish: Leftover flank steak

Side dish: Cape cod chopped salad.

Friday:

Main Dish: Tuscan lemon chicken

Side dish: Caprese Salad.

Saturday/Sunday: Meal applies for either/or. 

Main dish: Spring green risotto

Side dish: Asparagus with bacon, garlic, lemon, and olive oil. 

 

Hopefully I’ll get some time to bake some pumpkin bread or find an occasion for a pumpkin-ginger roll cake. I’m very excited to try it, but want to figure out the nutrition information and possible adaptations first. 

New blog!

Hi all!

As a supplement to my primary blog, Give the Globe, I’ve decided to make a cooking/healthy eating blog to help me organize my favorite recipes before I go abroad. I’ll be doing a lot of cooking on my own, and I’m excited to have a large variety of recipes to choose from. I’m also going to be chronicling some of my better meals abroad, which will most likely come without recipes and/or nutrition information (but I may work out similar recipes for them in the future!)

Happy eating!