This blog is all about Food. Real Food. Food that Nourishes, Heart and Soul.

Real Ingredients, Organic and Locally sourced whenever and where ever possible, shared with love.

No packages, no ingredients that are impossible to pronounce.

Real, honest food, from my kitchen to yours. Enjoy!

Thursday 23 October 2014

Grain Free Banana Donuts


I have been dying for a reason to try out my newest kitchen toy! I picked up this sweet donut pan in a kitchen store on a weekend away in Niagara a few weeks back. I have been on the lookout for a new one for a while, since the ones that I had and lent out a few years back sadly never found their way back to me :(   Needless to say, I was very excited to find this one without shipping costs attached! It is slightly bigger than the ones that I had, which is kinda nice. Now I am wishing I had bought 2!!
 The 4 over ripe bananas lounging on my counter provided me with just the inspiration  I needed to try it out yesterday. (it also may have been the irritated look from my eldest when he picked up said bunch of  bananas  and they started to peel themselves...those babies needed a recipe, and quick!) 


 The results were awesome, bang on first time out of the gate (love it when that happens!) 
Grain Free Donuts, who'da thunk it!! My mind is already spinning with what new flavour combos to try!!
 

 Anyhoo, if you don't have one of these seriously cool donut pans, these darlings would bake up quite nicely in a mini muffin pan as well, with maybe just a few minutes added to the baking time. 

Grain Free Banana Donuts

4 bananas, very ripe!
3 eggs
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 Tbsp Apple cider vinegar(raw, unpasteurized!)
1/2 cup coconut flour
3 Tbsp arrowroot flour/starch
2 Tbsp chick pea flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F
Using a silicone spatula, (or a paper towel) and a big smear of butter, liberally grease a donut pan, making sure to coat all of the surfaces. Set aside.

Mix all ingredients together well in a large mixing bowl with an immersion blender. Scrape sides of bowl to make sure everything is incorporated evenly.

Scrape batter into a medium sized zip top freezer bag, and snip off the bottom corner to make an impromptu piping bag.

You want the hole in the corner of the bag to
be just big enough to do one nice circle of
batter in the cavity.
Pipe the batter evenly into the greased pan, you will use about half of the batter.

Bake in preheated oven for 11-12 m or until cooked thru and just starting to brown at the edges.

Remove from oven, run a knife carefully around the edges and flip donuts out onto a wire cooling rack.
Cool pan and repeat the process with the remaining batter.***This depends on the size of your pan! I found another one at Sobeys yesterday, and it is bigger. They took about 2-3 minutes longer to bake, and took more batter!
I often cool things on the deck railing right
outside my back door...shhh! Don't tell
the neighbors or my food may
start disappearing!






Cool completely and serve as is, or dip into chocolate glaze.

Chocolate Glaze: 

1 cup Enjoy Life Chocolate chips
2 Tbsp coconut oil

Suspend a heat proof bowl (stainless steel works well) over a pot of simmering water (it shouldn't touch the water!) and melt together the chocolate chips and coconut oil. Stir the mixture until it is smooth. Dip each donut (I dipped the top side, it looked nicer this way!) and set back on the wire cooling rack. Refrigerate to set the chocolate glaze. Store any leftovers in fridge to keep the glaze firm.


Wednesday 8 October 2014

Grain Free Pizza Crust

Our Spynx cat Inka, trying to be helpful while
my hubbie replaces the part in my oven.
 In celebration of my stove finally being fixed, I decided to make pizza. I whipped up a batch of regular yeasted wheat pizza dough for my boys (they still occasionally eat wheat), and then I made this lovely grain free pizza for my hubbie and I. This is more of a technique post than an actual recipe, but the link to the recipe for the "dough" can be found here.  My grain free bread dough is very versatile, and makes a pretty awesome pizza dough. It does require pre-baking as it doesn't have the elasticity of a regular wheat dough. I baked it on a large pan lined with parchment, topped it and then finished it up on my pizza stone in a hot oven. Yes, an extra step is involved, but to have a grain free pizza that you can pick up and eat with your hands...totally worth it!

Grain Free Pizza

1 batch of Grain Free Sandwich Bread, NOT cooked!
Toppings of choice

Preheat oven to 400F (put pizza stone in while preheating if using)

Mix batter for bread as per directions in the recipe. Instead of baking in bread pans, spread out evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet with an edge preferably. I find one batch nicely fills my pan that measures about 18"x 13". 















Bake for 15 minutes or until firm and starting to show some browning on the edges. Remove from oven and using parchment, lift off and set aside on wire racks until it is cool enough to handle. 
















 Top with your favourite pizza toppings.


 Slide pizza peel under pizza, and carefully transfer into oven onto hot pizza stone***.

A Pizza Peel makes taking a whole pizza out
of a hot oven so much easier!!


 Cook for another 12-15 minutes or until the toppings are nice and hot and your cheese is melted, bubbly and starting to brown. 
Serve right away! (leftovers are awesome in lunch boxes!)

 ***(alternatively, slide pizza back onto baking sheet and bake in preheated oven if you are not using a pizza stone)