Banana, apple and almond muffins

So after a very messy experience with the Almond Banana Breakfast Bonanza with a few too many variations I put the rest of the mixture into a muffin mould and chucked it in the oven. The result got me thinking...

As I continue to make my almond milk for my breakfast I continue to find ways I can use the remaining nutritious almond meal before it goes off. I think I've found it! They keep longer than the meal on its own and they make great morning or afternoon snacks.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups of almond meal (or meal remaining from 3/4 almonds after making milk)
• 2 eggs
• 1 to 1 1/2 smashed up very very ripe bananas
• 1 peeled and grated apple
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tbsp psyllium husks

Putting it together

• Mix all ingredients in a bowl
• Spoon into muffin moulds (or tray)
• Bake in moderate oven for 25 - 35 minutes (depending on your oven)
• Check they are cooked by using a cake tester or metal skewer
• Allow to cool

Result

Okay, so these little muffins are probably more nutritional than treat. The texture has echoes of firm jelly but without being weird. I guess that is what you get when you add the fibre of psyllium husks. I wouldn't go out of my way to make these for guests but they are excellent to make when I need to use up the almond meal which seems to go off within about five days. Each muffin is filled with goodness and I enjoy them.

Verdict

I won't always have a very very ripe banana on hand so no doubt this recipe will get plenty of experimentation in the future. But for now it gets my vote for quick, easy and a nutritious snack. Some people might want to add some sort of sweetener like agave or honey as they aren't particularly sweet.

What's the deal with psyllium husks?

Without going into too much into detail, psyllium husks come from the psyllium seed. It is an excellent source of soluble fibre and often used in products like Metamucil. In some gluten-free cooking it is an excellent substitute for gluten because of its gooey texture after adding water. Essentially, psyllium husks absorb moisture. In the body this means that it helps to keep bowel movements on the soft side, in cooking this means it binds a recipe together.

NOTE: With any supplement or food that adds lots of soluble fibre it is important to ensure you drink a reasonable amount of water. The reason being because it draws on your own water supply in your body. This is true of Chia seeds too which I have spoken about in my sweet gluten free slice recipe.

You can buy psyllium husks in health food stores or even the supermarket. You can buy it in husk form or powdered. You can even buy it in tablet form.

Almond banana breakfast bonanza

This recipe comes to my blog thanks to a friend of mine. She introduced me to this concoction when we were travelling through Kangaroo Island SA. I was especially excited by this dish as I saw another opportunity to use the precious by-product of my almond milk.

What's in it?

• 3/4 cup of almond meal (or meal remaining from 3/4 almonds for milk)
• 1 tbsp psyllium husks
• 1 very ripe mashed up banana
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 egg

How it works

• Place all ingredients in a bowl
• Mix well ensuring you don't have a clump of psyllium husks
• Heat a frying pan with a little olive oil
• Spread mixture into the pan
• When base has browned, carefully turn over (hardest part of this recipe)
• Once other side is browned take out of pan
• Serve with berries

 

Result

Okay, so the mixture is a little difficult to flip in the pan (hence the reason I haven't go a photo of that). And as a result it isn't going to win any prizes for its looks ... but this dish is YUMMY!  Since giving it a go after coming home from SA I have made this four times. I love that I have no added sweetener (the banana is enough) and I love that it's dairy free and has the added fibre of the psyllium husks.

Verdict

This is a definite winner. I have tried a few variations when I didn't have a full banana such as adding berries or grated carrot. These attempts definitely fell into the TBNP bracket - that's Tasty But Not Presentable. Latter uses of this recipe I have made four small patties rather than one large one. A little less messy when flipping.

Almond biscuits - not bad for a by-product

After making my almond milk (it's now a weekly event) I am left with something akin to almond meal. I've been trying various ways to use the meal. I've had some rather impressive disaster experiments which I won't bother recording but my last concoction was actually quite good - not spectacular but then spectacular only comes along occasionally. As I only use 3/4 cup of almonds per batch (I found that the results of a cup of almonds went off before I finished it) I am left with about half a cup of this almond meal type stuff and most recipes I found for stuff required a cup or more.

So one night, I threw caution to the wind and decided to try making biscuits. I didn't really measure out what I was doing so the following is more of an estimate of what I did.

Ingredients

• Almond meal stuff (based on 3/4 cup for almond milk)
• 1 1/2 tbsp softened coconut oil
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup all purpose gluten free flour
• 1/4 tsp xantham gum

Method

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius
• In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients until you have a soft dough (you may need to adjust flour)
• Ball in your hand approx 1 heaped teaspoon of dough and place on prepared tray (I put down baking paper because it means I have less to clean)
• You'll see in the photo that there are some biscuits that are flat and with stripes. These were made when I rolled the dough into a log and wrapped in glad wrap in the fridge for about half an hour. Then I sliced the log and forked them for effect (that sounds a little wrong).
• Chuck into the oven for 6 to 10 minutes
• Make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom
• Take out and let cool
• Make a cuppa and enjoy

Result:

A cuppa is kind of important because these biscuits are a tad dry. But with a cuppa they are quite enjoyable. Certainly enough for me to make it again. I don't feel it needed any more sweetener than I had. Coconut oil is quite sweet anyway as is honey.

Verdict:

I'll definitely make these again and play around with other additives such as spices. As I know I'll be regularly in stock of the almond meal stuff I need to have a repertoire of ways to use - this is the first success I'll be adding to that repertoire.

'I did it myself' almond milk

I haven't drunk cows milk in years and my naturopath is not keen on my drinking soy. What does that leave me with? In the supermarkets there is an ever increasing supply of milk alternatives such as oat milk, rice milk, almond milk etc.

Aside from the fact that my body doesn't seem to like dairy milk, there may be other reasons to consider reducing reliance on the diary industry. When looking at any mass production industry it is important to remember that what happens in other countries may not be happening in Australia. But equally I believe that as the consumer we have a responsibility to inform ourselves of what we are consuming and how that consumable has been made available to us.

All that aside, the milk alternatives available in the supermarkets are often sweetened and are always in those UHT, longlife containers. A carton of almond milk can cost me $7 and since I don't drink that much of it anyway, it often goes off before I've finished the darn thing, so I'm tipping out about $3 each time. There has to be a less wasteful way.

A quick trip to google to search for 'how to make almond milk' came up with loads of youtube videos, blog posts and websites. There seems to be a variety of ways from the simple to quite complex. Me being me of course chose to start with the simple option.

Recipe
As I've already explained there are countless recipes on the Internet. However, the one I based my first attempt on was one of the many youtube videos - the only difference is that I added vanilla essence.

Ingredients
1 cup raw organic almonds
3 cups of water (filter is preferred)
1/2 tsp organic vanilla essence

Equipment
Vitamix (or equivalent high powered blender)
Nut bag (I found mine online at www.rawpleasure.com.au)

Method

• Soak almonds for 8 to 12 hours in room temperature water
• Drain the almonds and put them into the Vitamix
• Pour in three cups of water
• Add the vanilla essence
• Turn on the Vitamix and turn up to high speed and blend for 30 seconds to a minute (don't let it get hot)

• Place your nut back over a bowl (I used a jug bowl knowing that I was going to need to pour the almond milk into a container later)
• Pour the mixture into the bag.

• Using your hands (clean of course) massage the milk from the bag. I found this part interestingly soothing. Almost like using a stress ball. It was quite amazing to also see how much almond milk came out with persistence.

• Pour the almond milk into bottles and store in fridge
• Apparently you can use the almond meal left in cookies or burgers. Haven't figured that part out yet. 

Result
YUM! Certainly straight from the bag the milk was just a touch warm and so tasty. I'll be interested to see what it's like tomorrow on my breakfast. I filled two 300ml bottles and a third of a small glass.

Verdict
Would I do this again? Definitely. I love the fact that I made it myself, that it hasn't been made and then heated in order to store in UHT cartons on shelves for an indeterminable amount of time. There is the factor that I have to remember to soak the almonds but all in all it's an easy and fast process. This batch is very creamy so I even wonder if I could reasonably use more water which would yield more milk (wow, don't get to use the word yield that often). I'm keen to try a couple of variations on this - one which doesn't require the nut bag (keeps the whole nut) and another which is a chai drink.