Aunt B’s Pecan Banana Bread

Life has gotten away from me lately. The pasted two months have been nothing but chaotic for me.  Way to much chaos to tell you the truth.  I seem to have no time for anything anymore.  My poor garden suffered this year beyond belief.  I'm not even sure if my cabbage is still alive out there.  To make things worse the past several weeks I've had to buy my son's bread only because I've had no time to make any for him at all.  Let me tell you that's the most frustrating thing for me, because his bread runs about $6 for a small loaf that only lasts half of a week.  Yap, I'm spending $12 a week on bread!  I have to get my life back under control that's all there is to it.  As for my Pecan Banana Bread I have finally had success.  I made it a few weeks back, well maybe more like 3 or 4 weeks ago and it turned out pretty darn good.  I wanted to make it one more time before I posted it, so early yesterday morning I got all of my ingredients measured out and made the flour mixture.  The egg and Almond Milk I had to wait until later in the day to set them out, so they could get to room temperature.  I wasn't to sure what time of the day I was going to be able to make it.  Needless to say I was able to get to it as I started dinner.  Thank goodness I had everything already measured out.  I have found that it's not a good idea for me to measure out my flour mixtures while trying to cook.  I seem to leave something out every time. Last time it was the Xanthan Gum in the Peanut Butter Cookies that really turned out to be Peanut Butter Puddles. LOL I had to let them over cook a little just to get them to set up.  The boys and I still ate them anyway. I wasn't about to throw them out just, because they were extra thin cookies.

As I've said before I'm not a food scientist, so everything I bake is just trail and error. Well, here a couple of my errors. I have no problem showing you my flops only because it's easier for you to understand that coming up with your own recipe is just that. A lot of trail and error. 

Just a little too much moisture don't you think

Still a little too much Banana. You can see at the bottom it's too moist.

Aunt B's Pecan Banana Bread

This is the one according to my youngest 

1 to 1 1/2 LG Banana (170 to 185 grams)

1/3 cup chopped Pecans

½ cup Light Brown Sugar

Wet Ingredients:

1 Egg

½ cup Almond Milk

¼ cup Oil

½ tsp Vanilla

Flour Mixture:

1 cup Brown Rice Flour (158 grams)

½ cup Tapioca Flour (60 grams)

½ cup Potato Starch (81 grams)

2 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Xanthan Gum

¼ tsp Baking Soda

¼ tsp Salt

Grease 4x8 Loaf Pan and preheat oven to 350⁰

Mash the Bananas and set aside.

In a Large Mixing Bowl beat the egg; blend in the Oil, Milk and Vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.  Add the Brown Sugar and blend that into dough.  Next add the Mashed Banana and last blend in the Pecans.

Pour into the grease loaf pan and bake at 350⁰ for about 55 minutes. Let it cool in the pan for about 5 minutes. Take it out and let it finish cooling on a wire rack.

Note: I have made this with 1 1/2 bananas and it came out fine.  The reason I made it with one Banana yesterday was because that's all I had to use. Yap I measured the weight of my banana.  I want to try to stay consistent with the amount in this recipe.  Nothing is more confusing to me than when I see amounts like 2 small bananas or 2 large bananas.  I mean how big is your small banana or large banana?  Oh and what if you've peeled the banana and stored it in the freezer for later use like I have. I've cut those up so I have no real idea as to much is in those containers. LOL Now I have something to go by when I get those out to use.

Happy Baking Everyone,
Aunt B

 

The Right Tools for Baking

I have found out the hard way that having the right tools for baking is very important.  I bought a digital food scale a few days ago and found that I was using too much Brown Rice Flour in my recipe.  It wasn't a lot, but it made me stop and ask the GFCF Group what I was doing wrong.  Now, I wasn't the one in my family that took Home Economics. That was all three of my sisters.  I took art every year. What was I thinking! LOL  Ever since starting my son on the Gluten Free and Casein Free diets I'm the one in my family cooking from scratch.  I guess I could say it's my mothers fault, sorry Mom.  I watched her for years measuring everything with a Liquid Measuring Cup.  It's not her fault really.  I should have realized I was using the wrong measuring cup myself.  I can say if it wasn't for my new handy dandy food scale I never would have found out what i was doing wrong.  My hats off the GFCF Group for realizing right away what I was doing wrong.

So today I made my Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins using all the right tools and everything came out delicious.  Next I'm moving on to that Banana Bread I've been working on for the past month.  There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the days anymore.  Even with the time change.  As it is I'm sitting here waiting for a customer to call me back on my real job.  Wait a minute my real job is being a Mom first.  Sorry, boss you come second.  Stay tuned and hopefully I have that Banana Bread listed real soon.  

Aunt B's Beef Stew

Aunt B’s Beef Stew 

   

I made this wonderful Beef Stew last night using my Cast Iron Dutch Oven on the stove top. I'll be honest with you. I made one mistake last night. I used a teaspoon when making my slurry to thicken the stew instead of a tablespoon. Thick or not it tasted wonderful.

 

Ingredients:

2 to 2 ½ lbs Beef for Stew

2 to 3 tbsp Oil for browning meat

2 cups Beef Broth

3 lg Potatoes cut into cubes (not too small)

3 lg Carrots sliced

1 lg Onion

8 oz Whole Mushrooms halved

14.5 oz can Petite Diced Tomatoes

2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

1 tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

2 tbsp cold Beef Broth for thickening

2 tbsp Cornstarch

Directions:

Brown the meat with the oil just enough to brown the outside. Don’t overcook the meat or it will be tough and hard to chew.  Add the broth, potatoes, carrots, onion, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper.  Let it simmer until the potatoes are just tender in the center. Mine took about 30 minutes. You don’t want to overcook the potatoes because they will turn to mush. With the 2 tablespoons of the cold beef broth stir in the cornstarch making slurry, slowly stir that into the stew to thicken. Bring it just up to a boil, stirring constantly until it thickens. Not any longer, because then the starch breaks down and thins out. If you can’t do cornstarch due to allergies then try Tapioca Starch instead.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

Have you ever wanted to make something that should be simple to find, but you just can't find the right recipe?  Or worse you find the recipe and it refers you to another page for a flour recipe that make 8 cups and you only need 3 cups.  Granted it would have been a simple reduction if it only had flour, but there was several other ingredients involved.  In the end I made my own recipe for GFCF Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins.  My taster, my younger son, tasted the batter while I was filling the muffin pan. LOL I barely finished filling the muffin pan before he took the bowl to lick the bottom.  Best to way tell if the batter is good if you ask me.

Hope you enjoy!

Aunt B’s Gluten & Casein Free

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

Dry Ingredients:

¾ cup Brown Rice Flour

¾ cup Potato Starch

½ cup Tapioca Starch

1 tbsp Baking Powder

1 ½ tps Xanthan Gum

¾ cup Sugar

½ tsp Salt

3 tbsp Cocoa

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/3 cup GFCF Chocolate Chips (I used Enjoy Life)

Wet Ingredients:                    

1/3 cup Oil

2 Lg Eggs

1 cup Almond Milk (I used Unsweetened Vanilla)

Mix the wet ingredients in a mixing bowl and slowly add the dry ingredients, but the Chocolate Chips. Once it’s all blended together fold in the Chocolate Chips with a Spatula or Spoon. Grease the muffin pan and bake at 350⁰ for 15 to 20 minutes.  Check with a tooth pick.  If it comes out clean then they’re done.  Allow them to cool about 5 minutes in the muffin pan and then move them to a cooling rack.

Cooking and Gardening

One of my sisters convinced me to start a blog on something I've always enjoyed and something I'm discovering about myself for the first time ever.  We grew up with a garden in the backyard and learned at an early age all about pulling weeds. I hated it then, but I enjoy it now. LOL  So, you think I'm crazy.  Not when you have so much on your mind and working in the garden can take all of that away for just a few minutes.  The summer is gone and I'll miss having those fresh vegetables. I think Kevin loves the carrots more then any of them.  Kevin has brought me back to cooking.  A while back I switched him to the Gluten Free diet due to his issues with agitation.  Kevin's Autistic and helping him to live a fuller life to the best of his abilities is my goal.  We're getting there with his diet and you can read all about the changes we have gone through on his blog http://gluten-freewithkevin.blogspot.com/, but this one is about cooking, gardening and my family.  I'll have to tell you about my adventures with a cast iron dutch oven.  I never saw so much rust.