Wheat, Sugar & Dairy-Free Banana Porridge

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banana porridge, coconut porridge, coconut-banana porridge, dairy-free breakfast, dairy-free porridge, Danielle Walker, gluten-free breakfast, gluten-free porridge, porridge, wheat-free breakfast, wheat-free porridge

It is the start of a new year. And with the start of a new anything, we all like to begin things on the right path. Right path might not be the appropriate word here, perhaps more like a different path. I don’t believe in making New Year’s resolutions. They don’t work for me. And rather than make some and then feel like I’ve failed, I just don’t make them. I also believe that every day of every year should be no different than New Year’s day. Every day should be a new beginning, one where I try my very best.

Then the New Year rolls in. And like it or not, I do feel like it’s a chance to start fresh. Forget the past year, time to move on. And without making those impossible-to-stick-to resolutions, I tell myself that I will try my best. Try my best to be a better person. Try my best to find my way. To make different choices. To make healthier choices.

Making healthier choices usually involves food, and with the help of a new cookbook which I received as a Christmas gift, I look forward to making different choices with my meal planning. Not all the time, just sometimes. Against all Grain, by Danielle Walker, is a book consisting of gluten-free, grain-free & dairy-free recipes. After a quick glance at most recipes, I also noticed that they are sugar-free, with natural honey being the sweetener of choice. Danielle also blogs at againstallgrain.com, where she posts lovely recipes and chronicles her recovery from an autoimmune disease.

So, talking about new beginnings and starting fresh, I would like to share with you from Danielle’s book a delicious start to your day. Banana porridge. Both my daughter Charlotte and I just loved this porridge, welcoming its warmth and richness on the arctic mornings we’ve been having.

Banana Porridge

½ cup of raw cashews

½ cup of raw almonds

½ cup of raw pecans

Pinch of sea salt

2 cups of coconut milk

1 ripe banana

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Place the nuts in a large bowl and sprinkle with sea salt. Add enough cold water to cover the nuts by at least 1 inch. Cover and let soak overnight. Drain the nuts and rinse 2 or 3 times, until the water runs clear.

Add all the ingredients to a food processor and process until smooth. Pour the porridge into a saucepan and heat over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until warm and slightly thickened. You can eat as is. Or you can add some sliced banana, a sprinkle of cinnamon and drizzle with some honey. Oh, how yummy!

Scones & Clotted Cream

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Annabelle White, buttermilk scones, clotted cream, cream, scones, the great scone debate

My friend Karen was celebrating a birthday and I wanted to do something special for her.  Seeing as she is a huge fan of everything British, I planned a morning of tea, scones, jam and clotted cream.  Coming across clotted cream around here isn’t an easy task, and is quite expensive if you do.  As Karen stepped into my kitchen and saw the freshly baked scones, she teasingly asked, “And where’s the clotted cream?”.  To which I replied, “It’s in the fridge, but I’m not sure it’s ready… I’ve never had it before.”  Astonished, Karen replied that she was only joking.  Well, clearly I wasn’t.

After much perusing of various scone recipes, I settled on one from the New Zealand Women’s Weekly.  Why?  One look at this video and you’ll understand.  Annabelle White is so enthusiastic and excited about these scones, she is over-the-top cute!  I fell in love with her!  Oh, and the fact that these scones looked oh so fast and simple to make.  Or perhaps it’s the kiwi accent!

The original recipe can be found here, but I altered it by omitting the dried fruit and adding 1/4 of sugar instead.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 80g of semi-frozen butter
• 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk
• 1/4 cup of sugar

The trick to baking these scones, apparently, is using frozen butter and grating it into the flour, and handling the dough as little as possible with your hands, using a knife to mix all the ingredients together.  The knife saves overworking the gluten and produces a lighter scone.  It makes a rather wet dough, but that is exactly what’s got Annabelle so excited!

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  And in case you’re wondering what fan bake means, it’s convection bake.

Stir the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, using a knife.  Grate in the frozen butter and work it into the mixture with the knife until it’s mixed in. Don’t overwork it. The colder the butter remains, the better.

Add the buttermilk and sugar and continue to stir with the knife.  Keep the mixture wet, so add a little more buttermilk if necessary, just 1 or 2 tablespoons.

Place the mixture on a lightly floured surface and gently pat it into an oval shape, with just 5 or 6 pats in total.  Using a pastry scrapper if you have one, a sharp knife if you don’t, cut the dough into 15 pieces.  Place them on a baking tray, close together.

Bake at 400 F for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden.  Oh so scrumptious, no?

Clotted Cream and the Great Scone Debate

“Oh clotted cream, why do you baffle me so?”    Oh Lidia

And now for the celebrated clotted cream.  Apparently, it isn’t so easy to make at home.  So they said.  You need to use unpasteurized heavy cream. Unpasteurized cream or milk is non-existant here in Montreal, unless you own a cow.  Which I don’t.  And you also need to use a high fat heavy cream.  40% fat content is good, 50% is better.  The highest fat cream available to us is a mere 35%.  So, against all odds, I went ahead and made it.  And make it I did.  Oh yeah!  Lusciously yummy!

Preheat the oven to 200 F.  Pour 2 cups of 35% cream into an oven dish with a lid.  I read that it needed to be in the oven for 8 hours.  I didn’t read the part that said to leave it in there for an additional 4 hours if it hadn’t thickened.  So after 8 hours, or at 10:30 PM, I had to learn how to set my oven so it would turn itself off at 2:30 AM.  Only it beeps to let you know that the oven has shut itself off.  And keeps on beeping.  Until hubby nudges me at 2:45 AM and says that something is beeping in the kitchen.  Oh Karen, I hope you appreciated that clotted cream!  After 12 hours, remove the dish from the oven and allow to cool before placing in the fridge for 8 hours.  The cream is now clotted, if you’re lucky.  Remove the clotted cream carefully, not including the liquid cream on the bottom which you can use as regular cream. Transfer to a glass container.

Who would have thunk that this oh so luscious cream could spark a national debate over in the UK?  Well, it has!  The great debate is thus:  Do you spread the jam over your scone first and add a dollop of clotted cream on top?  Or do you spread the clotted cream over your scone and slather the jam over it? Hmmmm.  Unbelievable the amount of readings one can find on this.  In The Guardian.  The Telegraph.  Even The Independent.  Apparently, it’s a long-running rivalry between Cornwall, who claims it’s jam first with the clotted cream on top, and Devon, who insists it’s cream first with jam on top.  There’s actually a mathematician from the University of Sheffield who’s claim to fame is having proved which is the correct way.  Except that in The Telegraph she claims that it’s jam first.  And the very next day on ShortList.com, she insists it’s cream first.  Well, I just had to do my very own test, didn’t I?  So I tried my scone with jam first and the cream on top.  Yum!  Then I tried it with cream first and the jam on top.  Just as yum!  Maybe I needed to try again.  I did, with the same results.  So now I’m asking you my friends, how do you like your scones?

With the jam slathered on first and the clotted cream sitting on top?

Or with the clotted cream spread onto the scone and the jam dolloped over it?

And as I notice the time, I realize it is my birthday!  Happy Birthday to me! xo

Healthier Breakfasts: Oat Bran & Ricotta Pancakes

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breakfast, kid friendly breakfasts, oat-bran and ricotta pancakes, oat-bran pancakes, pancake breakfast, pancakes, ricotta pancakes

This morning, we were able to enjoy a low-fat protein, a high-fibre carbohydrate and a fruit, all with one pancake! If you’re wondering why this is such a big deal, check out my post on Healthier Breakfasts: Pear, Kefir & Honey Smoothie. I came across this recipe while perusing a Chatelaine magazine in my doctor’s office.

Charlotte made these pancakes one Saturday morning just over a month ago and they were fabulous. I was thinking of renaming them: “Pancakes Charlotte”. You know, so she could be proud and have a hankering to make them every now and then, entirely on her own. When she adamantly refused to make them this morning, claiming she was on Spring Break, I had a change of heart.

Oat-Bran & Ricotta Pancakes

1 cup of whole wheat flour

3/4 cups of oat bran

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of salt

2 eggs

1 cup of light ricotta cheese

1 cup of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla

4 tablespoons of melted butter

Pure Maple Syrup

Fresh raspberries, or your favourite fruit

I like to use light ricotta cheese because it’s thinner and can easily be worked into the other ingredients. You can use oil instead of butter. I prefer using butter in my pancakes and baked goodies rather than oil. I don’t know, it’s a mental thing!

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oat bran, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a smaller bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the ricotta, milk, vanilla and melted butter. Mix well. Add wet ingredients to the dry, mixing until just combined.

Heat a pan over medium-low to low heat. Every stove is different and for these pancakes, I started off at medium-low and had to lower the heat just a tad. The first pancake is always a taste-test for the cook, isn’t it? Pour about 1/3 of a cup into your pan and cook for about 3 minutes per side. When you see the uncooked batter just begin to bubble, it’s time to flip it over.

Keep them in a warm oven as you continue to cook the remainder of the pancakes. Serve with pure maple syrup and fresh raspberries, or your favourite fruit. I cannot stress enough the importance of pure maple syrup, not just for pancakes but for any recipes that call for it. Living in Quebec, who supplies about 80% of the world’s maple syrup, can you blame me?

The recipe makes about 12 pancakes, perfect for 4 people. I was quite satisfied after my second, but just had to have a third. My weakness when it comes to good food is to just keep eating, even if I’m no longer hungry. I must admit, the third pancake left me feeling quite satiated and somewhat lethargic, just wanting to crawl back into bed with a good read. And why not? I’m on Spring Break too!