Tag Archives: breakfast

Stone Fruit Crumble

The other night we finally had our first dinner guests. Some very good friends of ours graciously accepted our invitation despite it meaning that they had to drag their children out at night into our quite blatantly not child-proofed home. We had a blast! We still don’t have proper dining chairs or a baby gate for the stairs, or rug pads to make more easily (and safely) runnable areas, all of our furniture seems to have sharp corners and none of our floors are level–great combo–, but they overlooked all our deficiencies. Their children are fantastic and we always have a good time with them; it was a wonderful way to christen this home!

So, the grub: I made bbq using my dad’s secret recipe (which includes no measurements), sauce from Jason’s dad’s recipe, cabbage-kale coleslaw from. . .well, my brain, and corn with lime wedges and sea salt. Not so funny story- cooked properly a pork butt takes hours to cook, I mean, hours and hours. Well, roughly three quarters of the way through we must have had a brief power failure without my noticing it; by the time I found out the oven had cooled! So, add an extra 6 hours cooking time to the hours already gone by!! Lesson to take away- check on your oven even if it is not time to open your oven :). Amazingly, the Q still came out just fine.

For dessert we had what I think of as a “say goodbye to summer” crumble. Stone fruit season, for me, is the time when I begin transitioning from summer with all its sweet, hot languor to autumn, brisk, radiant, and a wee bit magical.

I used this dish as an opportunity to try a new-to-me ingredient: coconut sugar. I’ve been hearing good things about it for some time now, and thought I’d have a go. I really liked the results. It gave a rich, caramel-like flavor without the excess liquid you would get from maple syrup. This crumble is not only gluten-free, but dairy-free and vegan as well.

What is your favorite end of summer dish? Or are any of you in complete denial that the seasons are changing, holding on to every last minute of sunshine? If so, what is your favorite summertime dessert? Tell me about it in the comments; I’d love some good ideas!

P.S. Left over crumble makes a fantastic breakfast!

Ingredients

9×13 baking dish
blender or food processor
zester or grater
approx. 10 stone fruits (I used a mixture of plums, pluots, and nectarines)
2 Tbs. corn starch
1 Tbs. water
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 1/4 cup blond coconut sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar (or make it all coconut. . .or honey or maple or just plain cane)
2 cups g.f. whole rolled oats
2 cups mixed nuts and seeds ( I used almonds, walnuts, pecans, hemp and flax because that is what I have on hand)
3/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Wash and dry fruits. Cut into 1 inch chunks and place directly in baking dish. Combine corn starch and water in small bowl until smooth; pour this mixture over the fruit. Add lemon juice and zest, and 3/4 c. coconut sugar. Mix to thoroughly coat fruit.

(Note: if you like your topping very chunky you can skip processing the oats. I find that this helps to make the topping slightly more cohesive (and a nicer texture to me).)

In food processor combine oats, all remaining sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Pulse until a very rough meal forms. You don’t want to break the oats down completely, just rough them up a bit. Remove mix to large bowl. If using almonds in your nut mix, pulse those all by themselves until broken up into chunks (almonds are harder than many other nuts and if you try to process, say, almonds and pecans together, the pecans will turn to dust before the almonds are properly chunky). Add almond chunks to large bowl. Pulse remaining nuts and add to bowl. Stir to combine, pour coconut oil over the lot, and then mix until all ingredients are thoroughly coated.

Spread topping out evenly over fruit. Bake in oven for approx. 50 minutes. The crumble should be beautifully brown with gorgeous juices bubbling round the edges. Cool for at least 45 minutes to and hour before eating so that it may “set”.

Checking in and a Quick Recipe

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Howdy folks, long time no see. I warned you last time that posting would be sporadic as we prepared to move, but even I didn’t foresee this much down time. The last several weeks have been. . .odd. First of all, for the sake of transparency in a matter I’ve already talked so much about, I made a big mistake. If you have been reading for awhile, you know that I’m taking shots for a B12 deficiency. Well, February’s self-administered injection didn’t go so well. I hit a big, honkin’ nerve in my leg and within a few day I was down like a lame horse! So, that was fantastic; it is beginning to get better but is still amazingly uncomfortable to touch, walk on, look at :). The doctor said it was just an unfortunate accident, could happen to anyone, blah, blah. It felt like she was just being nice, that I am incapable, and should leave it to the professionals in the future. At least if they hit a nerve, I don’t feel quite so moronic! On the plus side, I just got my 3 month blood check results in, and my B12 is up from 164 to 275; hooray! That is nowhere near enough to get off supplements, but it is improvement.

In other news, rental hunting is hard these days. Properties are flying off the shelf in a matter of hours, not days, here in the D.C. area. However, after a few let downs, a few scary neighborhoods, and a few “let’s chuck it all and grow coffee in Hawaii” moments, it looks like we may have found a place. I won’t feel secure until we have signed the dotted line, but the situation is looking good and the apartment itself is wonderful. I’m thinking of calling it the Mustard Seed, first, because the building it is in is mustard yellow, and second, if it comes through, it will be a pretty tremendous step in this leap of faith we have been taking (in which there were definitely moments of despair and doubt). We should know definitely by this weekend, so stay tuned!

So, enough about that, I promised you a recipe. How about two for the price of one? Today for lunch I had this

inspired by this. Mine is just toast with goat cheese, beets and lots of arugula but the recipe in the link looks like a fantastic way to do it up a bit more.

For lunch dessert (that is a totally normal and acceptable thing, right?) I had this,

a mango parfait with goat’s milk yogurt, quick, homemade granola, and a sweet dollop of maple syrup. To make this granola you will need:

3 cups mixed g.f. oats, chopped nuts (I did almond, pecan, and walnut), and seeds (flax and chia seen here)

1/4 heaping cup coconut oil

2 1/2 Tbs. maple syrup

1 Tbs. vanilla extract

1 Tbs. coconut, shredded or flaked

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix oats, nuts, and seed together in a large bowl. In a small bowl stir together oil, maple, and vanilla. Pour oil mixture over oats and stir with spatula to coat. Spread mix over lined baking sheet and bake in oven for 15 minutes. Add coconut and stir to combine. Return to oven and bake for additional 15 min, checking ever 5 minutes to stir. Remove when golden brown. Cool completely before storing in an air tight container.

Gluten-free Roasted Banana and Chocolate Chunk Banana Nut Bread

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There is a whimsical, joking fear among the female community of growing up to be “the crazy cat lady”. I have a different, if equally whimsical and joking concern: I think I’m becoming the “crazy banana bread lady”! I mean, I love this stuff. Jeeze Louise Pete, there are already two recipes for banana bread on O.i.H., here and here. Where many people see a boring loaf laden with identity crisis (is bread, is it cake?), I see continual inspiration and an unexplainable comfort. Strangely enough, I don’t remember ever having banana nut bread or even acknowledging its existence until after my marriage. Jason’s grandmother graciously and rather optimistically gave me her church cookbook as a wedding gift; I did not cook at the time. On leafing through the contents of that unassuming little book, I came upon a recipe for a basic pecans and crisco kind of banana nut bread. One baking day later and I was hooked, not so much on that specific recipe, though I used it for years, but on the basic goodness of the idea. So when I opened my Google reader one morning recently, and the words “Roasted Banana” appeared before my eyes, this recipe was immediately a foregone conclusion. I don’t even know what the article in my reader was about; I walked away with my head in an aromatic cloud of sweet scheming, and the entry was buried in the ever-coming tide of new news.

If you were to say to me, “Okay, but I’m not a crazy banana bread lady, and I don’t need a dozen loaves of the stuff; which should I make?”, I would definitely say this one. It is dark, moody, spicy, sweet; imagine bluesy jazz, molasses, winter-blackened woody hollows, log fires in libraries. . .okay, I’ll stop. I’m telling you, I’m in serious danger of inventing the banana bread sommelier! Without further ado I give you. . .

Gluten-free Roasted Banana and Chocolate Chunk Banana Nut Bread

makes 2 loaves

Ingredients

1 cup almond flour (or finely ground almonds)

1 cup sorghum flour

1 cup tapioca or potato starch

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

5-6 ripe bananas, roasted

4 eggs

1/4 cup buttermilk or yogurt

1/2 cup coconut or olive oil

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup maple syrup

4 tsp vanilla

3.5-4 oz (1 bar) 70% dark chocolate, roughly chopped

1 cup toasted walnuts

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and line 2 bread pans. Cut bananas in halves or rounds and arrange on pan. Roast for 20-30 minutes until bananas have caramelized or you can no longer wait. Remove parchment with bananas and place walnuts on pan; return to oven and toast nuts for roughly 10 min.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl whisk together flours, starch, b. powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon until very well combined. In a food processor, large blender, or mixer combine roasted bananas (and any juices), eggs, oil, syrup, sugar, and vanilla and blend thoroughly. Add dry ingredients and process for 30-45 seconds, or until completely combined. (As this recipe contains no gluten, you really can’t overmix!)

Returning batter to large bowl, fold in chocolate, and walnuts, and divide batter evenly between two bread pans. Bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for 15 minutes before lifting loaves from pans to cooling rack.

Allergy Elimination Diet Baked Apples

Gluten-free, Dairy-free Chocolate Marbled Banana Nut Bread

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Howdy. I just realized that it is very nearly my one year birthday! Well, my blog birthday. In honor of that, I’ve made myself a cake. . .bread. Okay, actually I’m having tea with a friend tomorrow and I wanted something moist and crumbly to take along, and that is why I baked. But I think this is good enough to count for both occasions! A rich, fragrant, nut-filled banana bread marbled with chocolate and spiced with cinnamon. Yum! If you’ve been with me for a while now you may be saying, “wait a minute, don’t you already have a banana nut bread recipe?”. Why yes, yes I do, right here. But this one, if not a completely different animal, has enough differences to be a welcome addition, for me if no one else! This one is not only gluten-free, but dairy free as well (and with the migraines I’ve been having lately, I’m trying to be extra careful!). My next foray will be to add chunks of ginger, perhaps briefly poached in vanilla, to this recipe.

For this version I did sorghum flour, tapioca starch, brown sugar, maple syrup, and walnuts; you will understand when you see the ingredient options below. A quick note on that: I hope the varied ingredient options I often offer aren’t confusing. I am attempting to a) make it possible for people, despite their geographic location, to find some version that uses ingredients available to them, and b) show you that cooking/baking isn’t a program set in stone. There are ratios of ingredients that absolutely matter, but if there is one thing my daddy taught me (besides the basics of making a killer steak) it was to be fearless about making recipes my own. Do my substitution experiments always work. . .no. But sometimes I stumble upon something my mouth finds truly outstanding, something I would never have found if I had stayed inside the recipe box. So, happy experimenting (or direction following); if you make changes or just make the original, send a note and share the goodness!

Gluten-free, Dairy-free Chocolate Marbled Banana Nut Bread

makes 1 loaf

1 c. or about three ripe bananas, mashed

2 large eggs, beaten to light foam

1/4 c. olive or coconut oil

1/4 c. brown, cane, or coconut sugar

6 Tbs. maple syrup (agave, brown rice, honey, or golden syrup will work)

1 c. sorghum or brown rice flour

1/2 c. tapioca or potato starch

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup toasted pecan or walnut pieces

2 0z. chocolate, 62-80% cacao

Preheat oven to 350. Line a loaf pan with parchment. In bain-marie or metal bowl over pot of barely simmering water, melt chocolate until only small pieces remain solid. Remove bowl from heat, and stir chocolate until smooth. Set aside.

Mix beaten eggs, banana mash, and oil. Add sugar and syrup, and combine. Mix in flour, starch, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, and vanilla. Scoop 1/3 cup of batter and add to melted chocolate. Stir until thoroughly combined. In batter bowl add toasted nuts and fold to incorporate. Scrape chocolate mix into batter bowl and fold til evenly streaked but NOT combined. Pour into lined pan and place in oven. Check at 45 minutes with toothpick or cake tester (or, if you are a confident bread maker, do the thump test). If not done, tent with foil to prevent over-browning.

Remove from oven and cool, on rack in pan, for 15 minutes. Lift from pan and finish cooling on rack. Savor.