Alpenglow Muffins.....

Yesterday I baked ten dozen muffins! Thats a lot of muffins. Not for me I might add. I was fulfilling my volunteer commitment to Isobel's school and that meant baking, lots of baking! It was actually quite nice to have a couple of hours of baking without the usual "helping hands" I have at home :) Although I must admit it was tough to bake without eating a single muffin or licking a single spoon! Anyway back to the muffins....these are the muffins that are served to the kids along with their shared fruit and veggies at snack time at the school. They are made with buckwheat flour and are vegan, gluten free, wheat free and contain no sugar, only the natural sweetness of ripe bananas and unsweetened apple sauce. The magical combination of baking soda and apple cider vinegar gives them a lovely lightness.  In other words they are about as good for you as a muffin can get and still taste lovely! This morning I baked a batch for home and thought I would share the recipe here for any of you looking for good, wholesome kid-friendly baking without all the nasties.  I've kept the recipe plain but of course you could add some yummy nuts or fruits or serve them with a drizzle of honey if you have a really sweet tooth. 

Banana, Buckwheat Muffins:

Ingredients

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 tablespoon ground flax seed combined with 3 tablespoons of hot water

1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 tablespoons of coconut oil, melted

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup of unsweetened apple sauce

1/4 cup of water

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1tablespoon of apple cider vinegar

Instructions

1.Preheat oven to 350F and grease a mini muffin tin with coconut oil.

2. Combine the ground flax seed with 3 tablespoons of warm water and set aside for 5 - 10 minutes to form a gel.

3. In a mixing bowl combine the buckwheat flour, cinnamon, salt, melted coconut oil, bananas, apple sauce and water.

4. Add the flax seed gel and mix well to form a smooth batter. 

5 . Once the batter is well mixed add the baking soda and apple cider vinegar and quickly fold in the fizzing bubbles! 

6. Spoon the batter into the muffin tin filling each cup 3/4 way. 

7. Bake for approximately 15 minutes until the centres are firm and the tops of the muffins are just starting to crack. I baked my mini muffins for 15 minutes and my full sized muffins for 20-25 minutes. Allow 5 minutes to cool in the muffin tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

The muffins can be stored in an airtight container for a couple of days but for better shelf life in a sealed container in the fridge. 

Enjoy!

Raw Plum Yum Jam

I know I already instagrammed this but I had to write this easy and super healthy recipe on the blog because it was really so yummy! To make this raw jam you'll need some always magical chia seeds which use their superfood super powers to turn things into thick and goopy jelly-goodness! For the fruity bit you could use strawberries, blueberries, peaches or any fruity thing you like I suppose. I used plums because I had so many left over from my last couple of farm boxes. I used about 6 or 7 good sized chopped raw plums and about 3 tablespoons of chia seeds, this made me enough jam to fill a small jar. Stick this into your blender with a nice dollop of honey. I used a heaped tablespoon of my favourite raw local honey but you can make it as sweet as you like! If the fruit you are using isn't as juicy as plums you could add a tablespoon or so of water to the mix just to help the chia seeds gelatify (that's probably not a word but you know what I mean). Blend until you get the consistency you like, pour into a lidded jar and chill before serving. You should end up with a delicious jam with a nice, gooey, jammy consistency full of raw fruit and chia goodness. It'll be full of fibre and omega 3 fatty acids, it'll will boost your energy, aid digestion, give you lovely glowing skin and just taste yummy. 

 Your jar of goodness should keep in the fridge for about 5 days. 

Wheat Free Banana Bread with Cashew Cream

I've been looking for ideas for things I can bake to go in Seb's Lunch box. I want to make sure he gets a nice filling, sweet treat every now and again but don't always want to send him off with conventional baked goods full of processed sugar and flour. Here's a recipe I came up with last week for a modified Banana bread that I can officially call a resounding success! I used brown rice flour and spelt flour instead of processed white flour. Coconut Oil instead of butter and coconut palm sugar instead of processed white sugar. I baked it last Thursday and it stayed moist and yummy in a sealed container for almost a week with a slice a day going off to school with Seb.  Result! 

I would have added walnuts or pecans but at the time I wasn't sure if there were any nut allergies in Seb's class so I left them out. I've since found out there are no allergies to worry about so I will definitely add them in next time. 

I made some cashew cream to top it off and enjoyed the odd slice myself with a bit of chopped banana and a wee sprinkle off bee pollen. Lovely with a cup of tea in the afternoon!

Banana Bread Ingredients

• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup dates (chopped)
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups bananas (mashed, very ripe, about 4)
• 3/4 cup Coconut palm sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 11/2 cups brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup Spelt flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/3 cup Coconut oil (melted)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1. 
   
2. 1. Preheat oven to 350°. Pour 1 cup boiling water over dates in a small bowl. Let stand 10 minutes. Drain and pat dry.
3. 2. Lightly beat eggs with a whisk in a large bowl. Whisk in bananas and next 3 ingredients until blended.
4. 3. Stir together brown rice flour and next 4 ingredients in a small bowl. Gently stir flour mixture into egg mixture, stirring just until blended. Gently stir in melted coconut oil, walnuts, and dates. Spoon mixture into a lightly greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.
5. 4. Bake at 350° for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack, and cool completely (about 1 hour).

Cashew Cream Ingredients

1 cup of raw cashews 

1/2 – 3/4 cup of filtered water (add more water according to consistency desired)

2-4 Tbsp. honey or pure maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1.  Soak the cashews in filtered water for 3 hrs or more then strain.

2.   Add the cashews and fresh filtered water to the blender or food processor and blend until smooth.

3.   Add remaining ingredients then blend until smooth.

oats + banana = yum

I promised Bel banana muffins today but someone stole the second to last banana. With one banana and little enthusiasm I turned to google and came upon a brilliant idea! Cookies made with one cup of dry oats and one banana. That's it. Two ingredients. Hurrah!

Mix them up, scoop the mix onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350F for about 15 minutes. 

No sugar, no mess. Just healthy yummy-ness! It could not be any easier! 

I was sceptical that the mix would not stay together, I used an icecream scoop and packed it quite tight before dumping it onto the cookie sheet. They came out perfectly! The oats on the outside were crisp and the centre of the cookies were just perfectly chewy. They were just sweet enough as is but of course you could fancy them up by adding berries or chocolate chips. They are the perfect emergency snack!

I'm so impressed and so were the kiddies, check out Isobel's face......

She's taken one bite and she's already eyeing up the rest of the plate! They were gone in a flash! 

Mmmmmmmmmmm!

We have Kombucha!

Our first batch of sparkling, glowing, delicious, amber nectar (aka Kombucha) was officially a success! We taste tested on day 7 of fermentation and decided it was just about perfect. Our scoby had a little baby and we are ready to stagger production and hopefully get two batches brewed next week. From batch one we filled two and half bottles but we've moved onto a 7 gallon jar for the next batch so we'll hopefully produce 4 bottles at a time. That's a good thing because the two bottles lasted Neil and I less than 24 hours!  It's tasty stuff! 

Let the fermentation commence!

Have you ever tasted Kombucha? Oh it's yummy! It's a kind of fermented tea that is thought to have originated in China. You can buy it pre-bottled in health food stores and cafe's of the healthier variety like this or like this.  From my very first sip I was totally hooked! It tasted fizzy and tart and delicious! My best description would be a slightly vinegary, effervescent apple cider. Sadly as frequently seems to be the case in those pesky health food stores, it's a bit pricey. Anyway the more I read about this magic elixir the more I wanted it. As with many other fermented foods, Kombucha is super good for you! It's full of probiotics, it helps alkalize the body by balancing internal pH, it detoxifies the liver, alleviates constipation, relieves headaches and migraines, it's high in polyphenols and antioxidants, it lowers glucose levels, helps clear up candida and yeast infections and is even reported to reduce grey hair! Wonder drink no joke!  Anyway, it turns out this wonder drink is dead easy and totally inexpensive to make yourself. I began to research! The key to brewing your own kombucha is getting yourself a mother. I already have a mother but what it turns out I needed was this weird blobby, lump of a thing otherwise known as a mushroom or scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). I'm going to use the term scoby because it's not a mushroom in the real fungi sense and it's not my mother. Apparently you can grow your own scoby but it's easier to start with a fully grown one. Every batch of Kombucha you brew creates a baby scoby so theoretically I just needed to find someone willing to give me their baby. Thank you Kijiji! ( For those of you not from this neck of the woods, Kijiji is the most popular online classified ad source in Canada.) I have bought a camp stove, bar stools, a 100 year old sewing machine and now a simple form of life in a jar all from kijiji. What would I have done without it! 

So after a couple of emails and a call from "my kombucha man in Calgary" we arranged a pick up time.  Neil did the deal for me on his way home from work yesterday and arrived home with a beautiful blob in a jar and a faded photocopied recipe for Kombucha. I named the blob Cyril, had a sip of the juice surrounding him and did a little happy dance! I was ready to brew! Apparently Cyril descends from a long line of Kombuchas, the original culture used to make him is 25 years old! My kombucha man in Calgary has been brewing for a long time. He drinks his Kombucha every day and even takes his scoby on holiday with him in a little cool box! 

The recipe is simple, you brew a large pot of sweet tea, there are conflicting ideas about what kind of tea to use but most recommend caffeinated black tea. The recipe I used called for two black tea bags and two green tea bags, sugar and cranberry juice. I decided to follow these instructions from my kombucha man but might vary things up with later batches if all goes well. Once the tea is cooled you pour it into your large sterilized container along with your scoby, a cup of kombucha (there was some in the jar with Cyril) and top it up with water. Cover with cheese cloth and store in dark place with a constant cool temperature for two weeks. The scoby will feed off the sugars and as if by magic, fermentation will commence! Thats about where I've got to. 

Now.....we wait. 

Choco-Chai Christmas Cookies....

Here's another sweet and delicious recipe for all my fellow Chocoholics Anonymous friends. I hope you're ready because I'm about to blow your minds.............these cookies are gooey, choclatey, totally scrummy and.....MADE FROM BLACK BEANS!!!!! KAPOW!

Yes, black beans my friends. High in fiber, iron, folate, protein and antioxidants, great for your digestive tract, blood sugar regulation, cardiovascular health, health of your nervous system and (here comes a biggy.....) cancer prevention thanks to their 8 different flavonoids and enormous antioxidant potential. Beats the average lump of fat and sugar we usually call a cookie by a million miles!

Here's the how to.....

1 1/2 cups black beans, very soft (or 1 x 15oz can)

2 Tbsp coconut oil (or ghee)

1/3 cup organic cocoa powder

1/4 tsp coarse sea salt, plus some for sprinkles

contents of one chai teabag

1/3 cup maple syrup or honey or agave.

2 Tbsp ground flax seeds (or two eggs)

1tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup chopped dark chocolate (80% cocoa or higher)

1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts

- Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

- Mix ground flax, maple syrup and vanilla in a bowl and set aside.

- Place well drained and well-rinsed beans, coconut oil, cocoa, salt and contents of chai teabag in a food processor and blend until well combined. Add maple syrup and flax mix and pulse to incorporate. Remove the blade from the food processor and add chopped chocolate and nuts. Fold to incorporate.

- Spoon cookie dough onto lined baking sheet. Use the back of the spoon to flatten the top of the cookies slightly as they will not spread when baking. Tip - make the cookies no larger than 2 1/2 to 3 inches across. Once cooked they'll be quite soft and larger cookies might break easily. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and bake for 15-20 minutes or until edges are browning. Cool. EAT!!

This recipe was adapted form Sarah's stunning recipe for Chilli Chocolate cookie on My New Roots. I tried and loved the chilli cookies but Neil and the kids were not too keen on the funky chilli chocolate combo so my version is aimed at all those who prefer their cookies without a kick.