Wholemeal Banana Oat Bread - No Butter or Oil!

On a cold morning when i am getting ready for the daily grind my morning cup of warm maple syrup latte and a slice of toasted buttery banana bread is really the only thing that can wake me up and warm me up.

For this recipe i used wholemeal self raising flour, but added LSA oats and hazelnut meal to give it some extra nutrition and texture. I have a sweet tooth but can't afford to have dessert for breakfast. I need some health benefit in my meal!

Instead of using the usual brown sugar called for in most banana bread recipes I used Rapadura (aka Panela) sugar which is unrefined cane sugar. It has a lovely caramel flavour and a nice crunch...i love to sprinkle it onto of my latte and eat with the froth... it is by far more delicious than regular sugar and i urge you too to make the swap! i also swapped some of the sugar for maple syrup simply because i love the stuff and it too is unrefined.

This recipe uses NO oil or butter, so although it does have sugar it is far healthier than most banana breads. I admit i love to slather it with butter after i toast it....but i can suggest you slather it with some macadamia butter if you want to stay away from the bad saturated fats.

This recipe takes only minutes to make and the smells permeating from your oven while it cooks are too good to not try baking this recipe... so go...do it now!

and enjoy!
xxx Ba

Ingredients

* 3/4c light evaporated milk
* 1/2c Rapadura (or brown sugar)
* 1/4c Maple syrup
* 2 eggs
* 4 extra ripe bananas mashed (the riper the better)
* 1/2c Rolled Oats
* 1 1/4c Wholemeal Self Raising Flour
* 1/3c  LSA
* 1/3c Hazelnut meal (or almond meal)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, line a loaf tin with baking paper

Whisk Rapadura, maple syrup, eggs and evaporated milk together in a large bowl

Stir in bananas, Stir in Oats, Stir in LSA and Hazelnut meal, Stir in Flour

Pour into Loaf tin and place in centre of oven. Bake for approx 1 hour....or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Remove from oven and leave to cool for 15 - 20 minutes. turn onto a baking rack to cool.
Cut and eat while warm or wait until it has cooled slice and wrap..or even freeze some for later.

Tsering's Momos in Ladakh - India

View from our room :)

Leh, the capital of Ladakh in Northern India, sits in a valley at around 3500 metres and is surrounded by an amphitheatre of snow dusted peaks. In spring time it's dotted with the blossoms of apricot trees. Here you feel worlds away from the hustle and bustle of India, not to mention the change in climate, culture, language, and culinary delights!

Given the extreme climatic conditions of this mountain desert, which is only accessible by road from May to September, Ladakhis are very self sufficient. Many of them grow their own vegetables by strategically channeling the water from the mountain streams. In the short peak tourist season from June to August the valley turns from brown to a luminous green.

Tsering and her husband Thukstan are the owners of Tse-Tan Guesthouse which is North of the city centre, and arriving at their guesthouse was like arriving home, with their warmth and hospitality immediately obvious. Like the majority of Ladakhis, Tsering and Thukstan grow their own vegetables and have a little green house for the cooler shoulder seasons.

Tsering and Thukstan

To prepare all the meals Tsering sits on a cloth on her kitchen floor and their guests, whom they treat like family, can be as involved in the process as they would like. Ladakhi food has some similarities to Tibetan cuisine as they eat Tsampa (roasted barley flour), salty butter tea Thukpa (noodle soup) and of course Momos (stuffed dumplings). With barley as their staple grain it is used and manipulated in many different ways for countless dishes.

One evening we sat on Tsering's kitchen floor and made delicious Ladakhi style Momos. Momos are generally stuffed with cooked vegetables or meat and eaten with a chutney or chilli style sambal. They can be made with any kind of flour, but here we made them with barley flour. Making the momos from scratch, dough and all, can be quite a long process so it was nice to do it together as a group. I am sure Tsering appreciated the help! :)

Here I have included a rough recipe guesstimating quantities with enough to serve 5 people. The most important piece of equipment you need to make these is a large mutli-layered steamer as well as a grater. Feel free to be as creative with the filling and chutney as you like. Barley flour is used for the dough as it is grown locally but you could also use wheat flour. You can prepare the filling and chutney ahead of time.

Momo dough
Mix approximately 9 cups of barley flour with a teaspoon of baking powder and 2 teaspoons of salt. Have about a litre of water handy and gradually add this to the flour mixture. Don't add it all at once! Get your hands in there and be sure to mix and knead it well after each addition of water. Knead this and add water until it is a good consistency to roll out using some extra flour to coat the surface, to about 2-3mm thick. Use the end of a glass with a diameter of approximately 6-7 cm to cut circles in the dough.


Momo Filling
Oil for frying (here we used mustard seed oil)
1 small head of cabbage grated
3 carrots grated
1 small red onion grated
A few handfuls of spinach or swiss chard (silverbeet) finely chopped
100 grams paneer finely chopped
Handful of coriander and handful parsley finely chopped
Handful of rice vermicelli soaked in boiling water, strained and chopped finely
A few teaspoons of garam masala
Salt and pepper to taste
A few tablespoons of ghee

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large pot. Add cabbage, carrots, spinach and red onion and sauté with a few teaspoons of garam masala and salt and pepper until fragrant. Mix the chopped paneer with the coriander and parsley. Remove pot from the heat and stir through the herb and paneer mixture along with the chopped vermicelli and a few tablespoons of ghee. Set aside.

Momo Chutney
A few carrots very finely grated
5 tomatoes very finely chopped
3 green chillies very finely chopped
2 garlic cloves very finely chopped or grated
1 inch piece ginger very finely chopped or grated
A handful of parsley and mint finely chopped
Juice of 1- 2 limes
Garam masala and salat and pepper to taste

Mix all the above ingredients in a bowel and set aside.


Assembling the Momos
This is very tricky to explain but I'll do my best. Place a circle of dough in your left hand and put a teaspoon of Momo filling in the centre. It is easier to use less than more filling when practicing. Hold the Momo filling in place using your left thumb. Take your forefinger and thumb of your right hand and pinch together the edge of the dough, repeat by gathering another punch of dough squeezing it together with last working in a circle. Until all the edges are gathered together. Hmmm understand!? Perhaps YouTube will have better explanations for you! :) Have patience as it can take some practice!


















Cooking the Momos
Rub a little oil on the base if each steamer and place all the Momos inside making sure they are not touching each other. Fill the base if the steamer with water, bring it to the boil, and simmer to steam the Momos for about 30 minutes or until the dough is cooked. Remove from steamer and serve with chutney.

Enjoy your Momo party! :)

Spiced Roast Parsnip & Pumpkin Soup w Parsnip Crisps & Caramelised Roast Pear

 


This week the weather here in Sydney has really snapped. The wind is chilly, the sun doesn't seem to have the heat it did just a few weeks ago..and as if to confirm that winter is well on its way my veggie box this week was full of Parsnip.

So to warm myself up and make the best of a change i don't at all like, i decided to make a comforting warming soup. I had originally planned on making an apple and parsnip soup with a red cabbage chutney...but cabbage isn't anywhere near my favourite vegetable...in fact it's right down the other end of the spectrum. Alas I cut the cabbage, I put the olive oil in the pot... and at the last moment i aborted. Cabbage isn't my dream ingredient, and i had to listen to my tummy... I am glad i did.
Caramelized roast pear really outshone what red cabbage might have been!

This soup recipe is quick and easy. Roasting the veg keeps them nice and sweet and keeps the nutrients unlike boiling in which the folate, vitamins and some antioxidants can be lost into the water. I keep the skin on the veg as much of the flavour and nutrients are in the skin. I also roast the veg wrapped in foil with no or only a very slight amount of oil rubbed onto them.

serves 4
Ingredients

5 Parsnip washed and topped
1/3 a Pumpkin cut into wedges
1 spanish onion cut in half
4/5 cloves garlic in skin
1 generous pinch saffron threads
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 nutmeg shaved/grated
2 tsp cumin
1tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 pears, peeled
2 tbs rapadura  (or coconut sugar or brown sugar)
1L stock (i used vegetable stock)
s & p

Method

Pre-heat oven to 200degrees
Wash and Cut Parsnip in half cross ways.
Take the top half of 1 of the parsnip and cut VERY thinly using a mandolin or vegetable peeler. 1.5 to 2mm thickness is good.
Coat the shavings with extra virgin olive oil and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and set aside.
    
Wrap veg in foil. I put 2 thick top pieces of parsnip together in foil and bunched the small skinny ends together wrapped up.
Wrap the Garlic together in foil.
Wrap each half of the onion separately in foil.
Wrap the pumpkin wedges singularly in foil.
Place a pear in foil and sprinkle evenly all over with the rapadura (or sugar), wrap in the foil. repeat with other pear.
Place all in the oven on a backing tray (or directly on the oven rack if you wrapped them well enough)
Check after 20mins and regularly afterwards, removing any veg which is soft and cooked through.

Once the vegetables are all cooked, place the tray of parsnip shavings into the oven.
Check regularly and turn if necessary.
Remove from oven once golden.

Once the veg is all cooked carefully open the foil parcels and cut the skin off the pumpkin (i love to eat the skins while i am cooking, delish and good for you!)
Place a pot on the stove on medium heat
Add olive oil
Add the garlic squeezing the soft roast garlic out of the skins into the pot
Add the onion, the pumpkin wedges and the parsnips
Stir breaking up the vegetables as you do
Add half the saffron & most but not all of the cumin, cinnamon, & nutmeg.
Keep stirring and breaking down the chunks for a few minutes.
Remove from stove and add 2 cups of stock.

Carefully take a stick blender and puree the soup adding more stock and blending until a smooth consistency is reached. (The amount of stock depends on your own preference. I used only 600ml as i wanted a nice thick hearty soup. the remaining stock can come in handy when re-heating the soup the next day as the soup will thicken on sitting.)
Taste the soup and add the remaining cumin, cinnamon, and or nutmeg to suit your taste. Season with salt and pepper.
Place back on the stove and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Ladle into bowls, take the pears and slice place a few slices into each bowl a sprinkling of parsnip crisps and a sprinkle of saffron threads (optional)

enjoy the warmth!

x Ba

Caramelised Yoghurt - Kolkata's Mishti Doi - India

Think creme caramel style yoghurt! This was so delicious and something I look forward to re-creating when I get home! :)

From what I've read there are a couple of ways you can make this. I think the easier version is by combining the yoghurt with condensed milk and carnation milk an then baking it in the oven. See here for a recipe I found online

Otherwise the more original version is made by caramel using sugar and mixing this with the yoghurt before baking it. See here

If you're at all inspired to give it a go let me know how it turns out! :)

Lassi in Varanasi - India

The Ghats of Varanasi

Even in India, the place famous for lassis it can be difficult to find a truly good one. They can be found everywhere, however from what I've seen, creating the perfect lassi lies in the technique. Many places now resort to using a blender and adding so much milk and / or water that the consitrncy of the yoghurt is lost. In Australia the standard lassis you can buy in Indian restaurants are usually flavored with a sickeningly sweet mango purée. Sometimes both of these methods can occasionally still produce something palatable however my quest is always to find the real deal.

So far during my travels around India the best most authentic lassis i have found have been in Curd Corner in Kolkata and from a place on the street in Paharganj, New Dehli and in a hole in the wall style shop in Varanasi called Blue Lassi. I think the best most beautifully presented lassi was from Blue Lassi found in the winding back streets behind the ghats. Here they served the lassis in earthern ware clay pot style cups and decorated them with cream, fruit, slithers of pistachios and saffron orange blossom water.

What I've observed, creating a real lassi involves the following steps.

Shallow stainless steel or earthenware vats are filled with hot milk the night before and by morning the yoghurt is set with a thick layer of cream coating the surface.

In a large stainless steel mortar using a large wooden pestle or 'muddler' your fruit of choice is mashed, then a cup of yogurt is added, with a little bit of milk and a ton of sugar (usually at least 3-4 tablespoons!). This is then mixed by rolling the wooden muddler between two hands until frothy. If ice is used this is usually rolled with the milk to make it cold before it is strained and then added to the fruit and yoghurt. The lassi is then poured from the stainless steel mortar into a glass and topped with a slice of cream taken from the top of the yoghurt in the vat :)

Mmmmmm I ❤ real Lassis!!!! :)

Banana Lassi

Apple Lassi