Crock Pot [keepin' the kitchen cool!] GLUTEN FREE Banana Bread

Wow, what a ride it has been these past ten months. There is much to update, so much I want to share that I've been unsure of even where to start. This post will break my writer's block/overload, perhaps, since it's just for fun! :)
The one health update I'll share today is that I am thrilled to report, my platelet count has been steadily climbing since I left the hospital in June! Yesterday it came back one point below NORMAL range!  God is healing me thru and thru!

So onto the banana bread fun!
I discovered this idea when we had a major heat wave the weekend of Mother's Day, and I wanted to make quick bread for the brunch, but did NOT want my kitchen to get any hotter than it already was!
Enter my favorite kitchen appliance: the crock pot! This recipe as my inspiration,
I made some modifications and voila, Banana bread in under three hours with no extra mercury rising in the house.

What you need:
1 3/4 cup Trader Joe's Gluten Free flour blend
1 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsps baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt

3/4 cup coconut sugar (check out Madhava brand Organic Coconut Sugar thru Subscribe & Save on Amazon!)
1/3 cup organic butter or coconut oil
2 cage free eggs, beaten
2 ripe, medium to large size bananas (or 3 small), mashed
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (I use Trader Joe's Pure Bourbon Vanilla Extract),
1/2 cup frozen organic blueberries

What you do:
Grease the crock of a 3 (ish) quart slow cooker with butter or coconut oil. Set aside.
In a medium mixing bowl, sift together all dry ingredients except sugar (flour, gum, soda, powder, salt).

In another bowl, cream together butter (or coconut oil) with coconut sugar until blended. Gently mix in beaten eggs, mashed bananas, and vanilla.
Add in the dry ingredients slowly, blending well with a whisk.
Stir in the blueberries (no thawing needed).

Pour batter into pregreased crock, smoothing the top with spatula. Cover and set to High. Walk away - you're basically done! :)

Check the bread with a toothpick after 2 hours. It will be done between two and three hours. (Slow cooker power levels vary by brand.)

When bread is done, toothpick should come out clean, but bread will be moist and oil sizzling on the edges. Remove lid and let cool/set up for five minutes. Cut into pieces and scoop out of crock, or turn out the whole loaf onto a plate and cut to serve
Enjoy!

*Sometimes it is recommended to prop open the lid with a wooden spoon when baking in crock pots. I've never done this, but know it's an option if bread is too moist/not setting up.

Update: This recipe is even more fool proof than I thought! I ran out of Gf flour blend but had ripe bananas to use, so I thought I woukd experiment.

I used 1 cup brown rice flour and 3/4 cup teff flour. I was much more lax with the mixing too, I just combined all the wet ingreds together, added the dry, and put in the crock. This time I set the slow cooker on Low and let it go 4 hours. It turned out great - moist and delicious again! it was just slightly darker in color because of the teff flour.

so there you go, this recipe is even more versatile tban we knew!

If you make any changes be sure and comment to share your experience :)

Snow and Baking

I spent about two hours in the kitchen tonight preparing dinner and then eating at the bar and doing some homework. I looked out the window finally, after cleaning up, and the yard and street were covered in a blanket of white! Snow fell for at least four hours tonight - just beautiful! I sat down on the couch for my weekly dose of What Not to Wear and both cats practically leaped into my lap with jubilance that I was finally seated with a blanket. But my kitchen, oven, four ripe bananas and a recipe I've been wanting to try kept calling to me, and I had to give in and leave the kitties for a later snuggle. I made this Banana Nut Bread, and all I can say is that Stephanie is right -this recipe knocks your socks off and instantly becomes one that you'll turn to again and again. I'm even planning to make a loaf of this for my father-in-law, who misses my old tried-and-true, wheat and butter-filled banana bread that I used to treat him with occasionally. I don't think he'll be able to tell the two apart! Definitely try this recipe, it is divine.

I made muffins (a faster, easier breakfast/snack option than bread which needs slicing and plates). I adjusted the baking time to 15 minutes per batch of twelve. The recipe made twenty-two muffins in all. Here's a quick photo I snapped, just to prove to ya that I made 'em. I've already eaten two muffins, and I could eat two more. So I went proactive and froze most of them; this way they'll last longer than, well, one day :)

Easy GF Vegan Apple Bread!

There is less and less food around these parts, as we consume more and more of what we have and payday is still a few days away. This morning I was just not satisfied by my brown rice hot cereal with semi-thawed strawberries and leftover canned coconut milk, but there was not much else to choose from. After opening the refrigerator for the third time, I finally noticed I still had a few Jona Gold (aka beautiful!) apples from about a month ago (don't judge me!). I had made a point to buy apples for a quick bread recipe, and after debating for a few minutes, I decided to suck it up and bake! I'm glad I finally have enough of a supply of alternative baking ingredients that I can pretty much bake something on a whim - it's a nice feeling!

So, this recipe is kind of special because it was one of the very first to go into my cherished Recipe Binder. We didn't have internet access for quite some time, so once it was hooked up in early autumn I was online almost every day looking at the food blogs, searching for recipes and tips for people like me (allergic to dairy, egg, soy and wheat). She Let Them Eat Cake was the first blog I found that matched my allergies almost exactly, and it was so exciting! I even called my husband at work to tell him that I found a place where I could bake and cook almost anything that was posted! I printed out this Apple Bread recipe and filed it away, then early autumn (apple season) turned into late autumn and pumpkin took over my kitchen. Then it was Christmas, and other flavors and ingredients took precedence. January seems like a good time to find those passed-over recipes and try them out, so here we are :)
It just came out of the oven, and It. Is. GOOD! I love the texture: a crisp, sugary crunch on the top (brushing it with melted coconut oil helps with that) and moist, gooey cinnamon apple goodness inside. Perfection!

It needed about 10 minutes more than the recipe called for. Perhaps because of my flour-blend sub.

I cut out a piece right away, I couldn't wait!

*Substitutions: I didn't have arrowroot flour on hand and I am not in the mood to toast and grind quinoa for flour (another time!) so I replaced the flour mix that she uses in this bread with a different gluten-free mix containing sorghum, tapioca and millet flours. Also, I didn't have coconut sugar, and although it pained me to do so (almost as much as it pained me to buy it last month, even though there's no way to make sugar cookies without it!) I used organic cane sugar instead.

This is what happens when you don't let it cool first... but it doesn't affect the taste! 

Banana Nut Bread (gluten-free and vegan)

Okay, I just found this recipe and beautiful photos of the finished product at Gluten Free Hope, and my first thought is: Must Bake ASAP!

Why is it that when I'm not in the mood for baking, I'm missing the ingredients, or such is my current predicament, I don't have any ripe bananas, that I find great recipes like this? I will be going out tomorrow and buying some bananas at our local produce stand (with spare change I might add, since payday isn't until Friday and our Grocery envelope is empty). I will put the bananas in a brown bag, and as soon as they are ripe I'm baking this. I especially love the ingredients list - simple, easy to find flours and binders that I have in my pantry already. Love it!

Photo credit

Here is the recipe: Banana Nut Bread (gluten-free and vegan)

Update: I've made this recipe, not once, but THREE times, twice in muffin form! It was delicious as muffins and as bread, but we liked the muffins best because they were easy to grab and run out the door with for busy mornings. Yum! Stephanie, you've done it again - another fabulous gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free baked treat! :)

Thanksgiving... at HOME?

We are completely iced-in right now. The alley behind our home, which is the only access to our driveway and parking area, is on a fairly steep hill to begin with. It's full of potholes and wide, shallow trenches. These have filled with snow, freezing rain, and the output of all the French drains above, and all that moisture froze to a surface slicker than a skating rink when the temperatures dropped below 15 last night. (This is NOT average Thanksgiving weather for the Northwest!)

We plan to visit Hubs' parents' home for brunch tomorrow, and my parents' home for dinner. But today I'm stuck at home and beginning to wonder what we'll eat if we are still stuck at home and can't join the ranks for morning ham and evening turkey. At least we can have the dishes we'd be bringing to the brunch and dinner - our new favorite treat, Pumpkin Glory Loaf from the Flying Apron Bakery cookbook, and something like this Quinoa Pilaf or Herbed Brown Rice with Mushrooms - all GFCF egg-free and soy-free, of course! I planned to get to the store for butternut squash and apples to make more of my new favorite casserole, but I don't think that's gonna happen!

This year I wrote off just about all the "classic" Thanksgiving sides including the side dish everyone loves to count as a "vegetable": Green Bean Casserole. I've passed cans of Cream of Mushroom soup and French Friend Onions in the grocery store for several weeks now, rolling my eyes, knowing I was above such processed and sodium-filled semi-edible substances. My mom makes traditional Green Bean Casserole almost every year, and I've never missed it when it didn't make it on the menu. But I think in a manifestation of Murphy's law (as all of us food-allergy-plagued know too well), when I truly realize I cannot have something... I WANT IT NOW! I Googled "GFCF green bean casserole," and found THIS tasty-lookin' thing at Gluten Free Mommy...

I'm sitting here drooling over this recipe, knowing I need it to be GFCF egg-free and soy-free (Campbell's, I'm looking at you - join the 21st century and make some allergy-friendly soups! OK, rant over.).  If I rally the courage and can find the ingredients and appropriate substitutions tomorrow in my cupboards, I will post a recap!
Make it a Happy Thanksgiving, full of true gratitude of recognition of real blessings, no matter where you are and what you're doing!