Gluten-Free 'White Chocolate' Strawberry Muffins

I happened upon this recipe yesterday and knew right away that I wanted to try it.  The first thing that drew me to it was that it called for fresh strawberries and I had just bought some.  Secondly, it called for raw cacao butter in place of white chocolate and how could that not be delicious?  I made these muffins today with only minor changes, which I'll note below.

Here's what I did...

 I melted (on very low heat) 1/4 cup raw cacao butter and 1/4 cup coconut oil

 This is what the raw cacao butter looks like

 Meanwhile, I put a fairly ripe banana in my stand mixer

 And mixed until it was well-mashed

 Then I added 1/4 cup coconut nectar

This is the coconut nectar

 And I mixed this with the banana.  Then added in the melted butters.

 Then I added 2 organic eggs and beat it again

Then I added 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1 1/2 cups almond flour, 1/4 cup coconut flour, 2/3 tsp. Celtic sea salt and 1 tsp. baking soda and mixed it again

 Lastly, I mixed in 1 cup of small-diced fresh strawberries.

I dolloped it into muffin liners (13 of them) and baked at 350 for 28 minutes.

 So delicious!!!

Gluten-free Ginger Oat Crisps

I have been a big fan of this blog for a few years now and was excited when I saw this recipe (clearly their photography isn't done with an iPhone lol).  I knew it would be a winner, so I decided to give it a try today.  I doubled the recipe because I wanted to share the cookies.  They took all of 5 minutes to put together, so this is definitely one of those recipes you can whip up at the last minute when you're craving a sweet treat.  The only change I made was to 'up' the amount of ginger and sub. cinnamon for the cloves (Perry is not a fan of cloves).  They are absolutely scrumptious.

Here's what I did...

 

 I mixed together  1/2 cup coconut oil and 6 tbsp. of maple syrup.

 Added 1/4 cup buckwheat flour (I ground the whole buckwheat in my Vitamix first)

 Added 1/4 cup coconut milk (from a can, shaken to mix the thick and thin milk)

 I mixed all that together then added 1 1/3 cups large flake oats

 And 1/2 tsp. Celtic sea salt, 1 tbsp. ground ginger and 2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Dolloed it onto 2 parchment-lined cookie sheets (made 24 dollops, so 12 per sheet)

 Then flattened them out with my hand

 Baked them at 350F for 16 minutes, rotating the trays after 8 minutes.  Then left them on the trays for 5 minutes before removing to a wire cooling tray.

Foodie Pen Pals June

Well it's time for another food pen pals reveal.  This month, I was lucky to receive a box of goodies from Sam.  She really listened to my likes/dislikes and (self-imposed) dietary restrictions.  I was thrilled with the thoughtful things she sent me.

Here's what I got...

 Here's the box I received.

 Sam is the second person to wrap my goodies in a cereal box.  Great idea as it's light in weight and a good size.  We don't eat cereal, so I can only do the same when someone sends me one :)

 I mentioned that my biggest vice is potato chips, so Sam was kind enough to include these delicious ones.  I was happy to see they have no added MSG and nothing artificial.  They were treated as a big treat and didn't last long between the 3 of us :)

 I haven't tried this, but it sounds wonderful.  Sam said she bought it at a local farmers' market.  I know it's going to be great.

 I had never seen this before, but will be looking out for it for sure.  It's sweetened with coconut palm sugar!  I could hardly believe it when I read that.  Again, it has nothing artificial in it.  It had a lovely deep, dark chocolate flavour and was gone pretty fast.

This curry masala was fantastic.  I used it with some ground grass-fed beef from a local farm and sauteed lots of onions, garlic, ginger, bell peppers & kale with it.  We loved it.

 Sam also included a lovely hand-written note to explain everything to me.

And last but not least, she included one of her favourite recipes.  I'll be trying this very soon.  I'm a big fan of Thai soups and make one that's popular with family and friends.  Mine's with pumpkin and Sam's is with sweet potatoes and shrimp.  It'll be fun to compare the two.

So another foodie pen pals experience is under my belt and again it was a wonderful one.  If you're interested in seeing what I sent, pop on over to Michelle's blog If you're interested in giving it a try yourself, just click on the "I love foodie pen pals" image at the top left-hand side of the page.

May Foodie Pen Pals

Well it's time for another Foodie pen pals package and I am absolutely thrilled with this month's goodies.  My sweet pen pal Ceecee from B.C. really listened to what I told her in my e-mail and sent me the most wonderful selection of treats.

Here's what I saw when I opened the box...

My first thought was that during my 3 months participating in foodie pen pals, I have received seaweed every single time.  I don't think I mentioned to any of my pen pals that all three of us love it and eat it like it's going out of style so I guess they are all psychic :)

 I've had wasabi seaweed before, but never this brand so I'm excited to try it.

 New kinds of dark chocolate for me to try...yum!

 Spicy salt!!!

 I'm really looking forward to experimenting with this curry powder.

 

Crunchy green beans.  Sounds delicious!!

 

OMG chocolate-covered potato chips.  These will obviously be a HUGE treat for me and I can't wait to try them.

 Never tried teriyaki sunflower seeds, but I imagine they'll be delicious.

Best foodie pen pal box ever.  Thanks so much to the lovely Ceecee!

And this month the foodie pen pal who was chosen for me was my sister Ashleigh.  I'm not sure if she took pics. of what I sent her, but I'll be sure to ask if she'll write a short guest post about the package.

Grain-free, no-added-sweetener Banana Bread

 

I am so excited about this recipe.  I think it tastes almost like regular (made with wheat flour) banana bread, yet it has no grains and no added sugars of any kind!  

I've been avoiding bananas altogether for quite some time as they're such a sweet, starchy fruit but the more I think about it, the more I think that there's no reason I can't use them to sweeten baked goods.  I figure if I'm using 2 or 3 bananas for a whole recipe, I'm not likely to be consuming more than maybe 1/4 of a banana at a time and that's really not that much.  So I'm giving myself cautious permission to add them back into our diets.  

I found this wonderful recipe this morning and knew it was the one I wanted to tinker with.  I really only made a couple of changes to the original recipe and that was to add one extra banana in place of the maple syrup it called for and a little bit more spice and salt.  I figured the moisture from the banana would replace the moisture in the maple syrup and it would also replace the sweetness.  The experiment worked!  It's both sweet and moist and the texture is fantastic.  I know I'll be making this one again soon and probably changing it up a little bit by adding nuts or 70% cocoa chocolate chips (if Krestan has his way).  

Okay enough chatter and on to the recipe.  Here's what I did...

 I added 3 bananas to my stand mixer.  Didn't bother to mash them as the mixer is good at that :)

Added 2 organic eggs that my wonderful friend Teresa picked up for me at a local farm.

 To the mixer, I added a teaspoon of vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of melted virgin coconut oil.

 I mixed it all together for a couple of minutes and as you can see, the mixer did a great job of mashing those bananas.

To a small bowl, I added 3/4 cup almond flour and 1/4 cup coconut flour.

I added 3/4 tsp. baking powder, 3/4 tsp. baking soda, 3/4 tsp. Celtic sea salt, 2 teaspoons (heaping) cinnamon and 1/4 tsp. nutmeg.

I cut a parchment sling to fit a glass 9x5 loaf pan and lightly greased the parts that the parchment didn't cover.

I gave everything a quick mix until just combined and then spooned it into the prepared pan.  

I baked it at 350F for one hour and then removed it from the oven.  I lifted it out by the parchment sling and placed it on a cooling rack for a couple of hours until cooled completely.

Then I sliced it up and was delighted with the texture and flavour.  Yum!

Grain-free Banana Bread

2 large eggs
3 ripe large bananas
2 tablespoons virgin coconut oil, melted
3/4 cup of almond flour
1/4 cup of coconut flour
3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of Celtic sea salt
2 heaping teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare a parchment sling and line a 9X5 glass loaf pan.  Spray the edges that the parchment doesn't cover.  Using a stand mixer, mix the eggs, bananas and melted coconut oil.  Mix it all until the bananas are nicely mashed up.  To a small bowl, add remaining ingredients and mix well.  Dump everything from the small bowl into the mixer bowl and mix until just combined.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for about an hour until top springs back when lightly pressed.  Allow to cool on a wire tray before slicing.