Grain-Free Banana Peanut Butter Muffins

Happy New Year, friends! I trust you had a lovely holiday. I, for one, enjoyed the break from routine and just doing nothing, really. Well, I hung out with my family and saw friends. I attended & hosted a party or two. Generally speaking, though, I relaxed! With temperatures around zero or single digits, I'm having a bit of trouble getting into gear! Here it is January 8th and I've only now returned to work. It's all good though. My January calendar is fairly full. I'm about to start working with a new client on her brand new business logo (my favorite!), I've got new customizable, pre-made logos about to launch and I continue to prepare yummy, whole food, for my crew at home. This brings me to today's topic: Muffins!

As you may know, if you're a regular visitor to my journal, I am a grain-free observer. I will have corn now and again (organic only), but all the other grains don't agree with me. So I'm getting creative in the kitchen when it comes to baked goods. Here's my latest recipe based on several flourless muffin recipes, but with my own twist. For example, I love adding extra eggs, vanilla and hazelnut meal whenever possible. This recipe is no acceptation.

Ingredients:

• 1 large ripe banana
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup creamy organic peanut butter (I prefer using regular organic peanut butter when baking rather than homemade peanut butter. The homemade type tends to be too runny for baking in my opinion.)
• 3 tablespoons organic maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon madagascar vanilla (please use the real stuff)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/3 cup fine ground hazelnut meal/flour
• 1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400˚F.
• Using your stand mixer or hand mixer, combine all ingredients but the chocolate chips, and mix/whisk on medium low speed. Add the peanut butter once  you've added all the other ingredients to insure it doesn't clump and stick to the bottom of your bowl.
• When you've got your batter well combined, fold in your mini chocolate chips until incorporated.
• Pour into your muffin papers. I like using the larger variety, which makes muffin-tops.
• Bake for 17 minutes if you're using the larger papers. Your baking time will vary based on the size of muffin papers you use.
• Enjoy warm, fresh from the oven with a bit of butter on top. You can also keep them in an airtight container for 4-5 days, but honestly... who can keep from eating muffins that long?

I'm guessing you have all the ingredients in your kitchen right now, though maybe not the hazelnut meal/flour. If you don't have the hazelnut meal... go get some! It's a delicious addition to your baking. Especially if you're embracing the grain-free or gluten free lifestyle! Give this recipe a try. And if you do, please let me know, in the comments, how you like them!

Cheers!

-Patti

Grain Free Banana Pancakes (for one)

I decided to give up grains a little more than a year ago. You can read about that personal decision here. For the most part, I've only been thrilled with my change in diet. That being stated, there are some days when I really just want comfort food that is best delivered in a bread or cake form. A few weeks ago, I was having one of those days. I've come up with the following recipe with inspiration from this Paleo English Muffin recipe I found on Running to the Kitchen (thanks, Gina!). 

I'm not following the Paleo Diet, but often Paleo recipes are a good starting point for what I'm looking for in a grain free dish. Since I still eat dairy and basically everything except grains, here's the recipe I created to take care of my pancake cravings. I've made this recipe three times and each time it does the trick. Even my kids and husband love it, and they're not use to a grain free diet.

Ingredients

• 5 tsp Quinoa Flour
• 5 tsp Hazelnut Flour
• 1 tsp Potato Flour
• 1/4 tsp Baking Soda
• Dash of Kosher Salt
• 1 tsp Madagascar Vanilla
• 1 Tbs melted unsalted Irish Butter (it just tastes better)
• 1 Egg (whisked)
• 1 very ripe Banana (smashed well with fork)

Directions:  Combine well first five ingredients. In a separate bowl combine remaining ingredients and mix well. Blend the dry and wet ingredients and stir until you have your batter. Cook your pancakes as you would regular pancakes, on a medium heat griddle with melted butter to prevent sticking. Don't over-heat your griddle. These pancakes take a bit longer to cook in the center. Slow and steady wins the race here. If you've discovered you have pancakes that look perfect on the outside, but are still wet on the inside, you can pop your stack of pancakes in the microwave for  30 seconds and you should be good to go!

Top with your favorite maple syrup and fresh berries. Enjoy!