Grain-free banana pancakes

 We've had a big change in our diet recently as we have started following  tooth healing principles in an attempt to help Ollie's enamel hypoplasia (very frustrating and upsetting that he has dental problems given that we had what we thought was a super healthy diet and the kids have never been given much sugar).  I'll do a more thorough post on this another time, when I have time to collate the information sources that I read.  I'm neither a doctor, a dentist nor a nutritionist, so anything here is just a comment on something we're trying, not a recommendation for anyone else to change their normal diet without thorough research of their own.  Many of the elements of what we're doing would fit with what may be the more familiar paleo diet.

One element of the diet is a big reduction in the quantity of seeds we were consuming - which includes nuts, grains and pulses, plus virtually no sugar which includes fruit sugars.  This left breakfast being potentially tricky as our usual fare was porridge, cereal or toast followed by a big fruit snack plate.

I found a few recipes for pancakes (American style rather than crepes) which used just eggs and bananas, but I found this batter very runny and prone to become banana flavoured scrambled eggs.  With a bit of playing around I developed the recipe below, which is so delicious the kids even ask for it on 'treat day' - the day of the week they are allowed to have grainy treats like toast and pasta.

You can make it by mashing the banana and hand whisking the ingredients, but we have a blender so we use that.  It is easy for the kids to make and produces a lovely smooth batter.  We use coconut flour, but if you could substitute for any flour if you're not avoiding grains, for example buckwheat if you're gluten free, or regular flour if not.



For three people we use:
3 eggs (large, or 4 is small)
2 medium bananas
1 tablespoon coconut flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon

I've tried it with and without bicarb too, but find it makes little difference, so I leave it out now.

Blend it all up and use one dessertspoon of batter per pancake.  I have two pans on the go and fit 3 or 4 pancakes in each pan to speed things up, but a hot plate would be ideal if you have one.  I use cold pressed rapeseed oil (canola) but coconut oil is good too.  You have to watch the heat as the banana content can cause rapid burning, and it takes a bit of practice to get the pancakes to be set on top enough to turn over without burning them underneath.

Serve with a knob of grass fed butter (if you're in the UK that's just regular UK produced butter since we are currently not plagued by factory farmed milk).  On the day I took the photo below we also served it with blackberries and home made sugar-free jam (made using xylitol, recipe for that another time).

To keep the kids filled up for a couple of hours, I follow this up with plain full fat yoghurt with a teaspoon of our sugar-free jam, or sometimes honey or maple syrup.

We have followed the diet for a full calendar month now, and while we won't know until the next 6 monthly dental check up if there has been a measurable difference in Ollie's teeth, our own observations are that my gums and teeth feel in better condition, Ollie says his teeth don't hurt any more (this could be a placebo effect, we won't know until the dentist looks at him), and I have lost 7lbs while being less hungry, so who knows, we are tentatively hopeful that this may be a helpful change.  If not, it's certainly a tasty change.

Note: the misty effect on the pics isn't a camera filter attempting to make my kitchen look tidier or the food look mystical. I think it was a fingerprint on the phone lens :)

Cacao nib and oat cookies

I love trying new things with the kids and experimenting with recipes for healthier treats since I feel that processed foods and high levels of sugar are especially unhelpful to our health.  Our local store has just started stocking cacao powder and cacao nibs so it seemed a good opportunity to do some baking.

I found a recipe for cacao nib cookies (click here for link to original recipe) and adapted it to use wholemeal flour instead of plain, molasses instead of brown sugar, and added in some cacao powder to make the cookies even more chocolaty.

Here is the recipe I ended up with (measured in cups as this is easier for the kids):

Preheat oven to 220 oC (high) then mix the following dry ingredients in a big bowl:
1 cup cacao nibs
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup porridge oats
1/2 cup molasses (or brown/muscovado sugar)
1/2 cup granulated/caster sugar
1 tablespoon cacao powder/cocoa powder (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Now add in your 'wet' ingredients:
100g butter (real butter, or liquid vegetable oil, but not 'butter spread')
1 egg

Mix it all together - it will be quite a crumbly mix but you should be able to squash a spoonful into a ball without it falling to pieces.  If it's too crumbly add a tablespoon of water or milk and try again.

Roll dessertspoonfuls of the mixture into balls, then flatten to make cookie shapes.  Place on baking paper on baking trays, leaving space between for spreading.  Bake for 8-10 minutes - the edges should be starting to feel firm, but the middle should still be a bit soft.  They will harden up a bit more as they cool and dry outside the oven.  (I used to make the mistake of leaving biscuits cooking until they felt dry, but then they end up so hard when they cool that you can't bite them).

We ended up with 18 cookies, but would have had more from the mixture if it hadn't been taste tested quite so often by the boys as they were making it.

The results in terms of taste are of mixed success in our house - Ollie and I love them, Toby is less enthusiastic and Matt really doesn't like them.  The cacao nibs are crunchy, nutty and a little bitter which I really like against the treacly taste of the molasses, but Matt is a choc chip 'Chips Ahoy' cookie fanatic and didn't like either the nibs or the molasses.

Health wise they do still contain sugar, but the molasses are an unrefined form packed with nutrients not found in refined sugar, including iron.  Cacao powder and nibs are nutritionally extremely beneficial according to the hype with a range of nutrients and antioxidants.  Wholemeal flour and oats are good nutritious ingredients that will release energy slowly and along with the egg are a source of protein.  So while still a treat, these cookies shouldn't give you a sugar high and subsequent crash the way regular biscuits do.

Note:
An interesting theory I read recently about sugar said that it depletes our bodies of zinc, and zinc is necessary for us to develop an 'adult' taste palate.  By eating foods high in sugar and feeding them to our kids we essential retard our preferences at the level of a young child, and conversely by avoiding excessive sugar we can change our preferences towards a more savoury palate.  So if you have trouble getting your kids (or yourself) to enjoy anything other than processed foods, a good place to start would be in cutting right down on sugar and sweeteners. 

Cooking with kids (and the best pan I have ever owned)

Yesterday I received the best thing I have so far been sent to review - a really amazing pan.  I know this isn't the coolest statement ever uttered, but I was genuinely really excited because  I have been looking for a great alternative to traditional non-stick pans for a couple of years and the Ozeri Stainless Steel Earth Pan is THE ONE.

Twenty or so years ago, when I was a kid, my parents twigged to the idea that cooking food in aluminium pans could release aluminium into your food, with the associated health risks that were just beginning to be reported, such as a potential link with Alzheimer's disease.  With two young kids in the house my folks decided it wasn't worth the risk and ditched the aluminium in favour of stainless steel.

With my own family I have always used stainless steel pans, but we also had non-stick coated frying pans.  These got pretty bashed up and scratched and I was concerned that some of the non-stick coating that was disappearing from the surface of the pans might be ending up in our food.  I started to hear suggestions that this coating was a potential carcinogen, and although I'm not one for jumping on the media scare band-wagon, this particular one sounded all too likely, so out went the non-sticks and in came the regular run ins with burnt on food.  This is kind of ironic since burnt food also contains carcinogens.

The opportunity to review one of the new generation of non-stick pans therefore came as a real delight.  These pans are manufactured by Ozeri, an American company that supplies luxury holiday homes with items such as top of the range pans and kitchen scales.  The company is so chic it doesn't even advertise, relying instead on customers using the products when on holiday and not being able to live without them when they get home.  The pan I was sent features Eterna 'the world's longest lasting 100% PFOA-free non-stick coating developed in the USA'.  With a few simple care instructions, including a cute little blanket to put it to bed with so it doesn't get scratched when stacked with other pans, this product has a lifetime guarantee.  The pan feels good quality, a nice weight, comfortable balanced hold and I'm looking forward to trying out the hob-to-oven feature that will make frittatas really easy.

I had been mulling over a few ideas for how to really road test the pan while I was waiting for it to be delivered.  My final conclusion was that my special egg fried rice was the meal that was certain to stick and burn in every other pan I have ever owned.


Special egg fried rice is one of Toby's favourite meals to help with because it means he gets to break some eggs.  Usually more eggs than are actually needed because he loves it so much.  My rice recipe also contains mushrooms, so lots of fun chopping for him, plus anything else that needs using up (hence why it's 'special').

It's very simple: cook rice, let the rice cool and dry out a bit.  Whisk up eggs.  Add rice and egg to a frying pan and cook over a medium heat.  When the egg starts to cook, add in anything else that needs using up, season, add a little soy sauce and jobs a good 'un.  Then serve with a nice seasonal salad (with edible flowers if you have them) and enjoy.... followed by soaking the pan, boiling vinegar in it and cussing it gently as I scrub it late into the night.

Not this time - the new pan actually lived up to the hype and nothing stuck to it, nothing burned and the pan ended up coming off the hob looking like new.  Hubby Matt was so awed he even put it to bed in a cupboard with it's blanket on instead of wedging it under a stack of other pans on the shelf.


As to the meal, clean plates and not too much on the floor, so definitely a success.  Ollie and Toby especially liked the lack of black bits in the rice, and were definitely more adventurous in eating the nasturtiums and marigolds in the salad than their daddy was.

Baker boy - Spelt dough bread

Have you ever worried that making play dough might be a bit wasteful of a food resource?  Why not make sure that less of that dough ends up in the compost heap by sometimes making bread instead?  The key skills are measuring, pouring, stirring and kneading, plus the sensory experience of smelling the yeast and feeling the texture of the ingredients.  This activity contributes to self esteem and helps to build a healthy relationship with food.

The recipe I've developed here uses spelt flour (explanation at the end), but you can substitute with regular strong white or wholemeal wheat flour if you prefer it or can't get hold of spelt, in which case increase the flour quantity to 475g.  I used wholemeal spelt, but I prefer to mix half and half wholemeal and white spelt if I have them as it makes a lighter loaf.  The original recipe was on a packet of Allinson wholemeal bread flour, but I have fiddled with it to make it work better for spelt flour.

I used 15g dried active yeast but you could substitute for a 7g easy bake yeast sachet.  I like making up dried active yeast because I think it may be gentler on the tummy, and also it makes it more obvious to the kids the role that the yeast plays in the baking process because they can see it bubbling up.

 Step 1:  Mix 100ml cold water with 50ml boiling water to make warm water, stir in 5g (1tsp) sugar and sprinkle 15g (1 tablespoon) dried active yeast on top of the water, then whisk in thoroughly.  Leave for 10 minutes or so in a warm place until about 2cm of froth is on top, then stir this back in to the water - it's ready to use.

You can explain to your kids that the yeast is a tiny fungus that is asleep when it is dry, but by getting it wet it wakes up and starts to multiply.  The sugar is it's food - the yeast eats the sugar and 'burps out' carbon dioxide bubbles which make the water go frothy.  It is these bubbles which will make the bread rise up.

Step 2:  Help your little one to measure out your wet and dry ingredients ingredients into separate containers - 400g spelt flour, 1 tsp sea salt, 150ml warm water and 15ml (1 tablespoon) vegetable oil (cold pressed rapeseed oil is a good flavourless nutritious oil which won't produce bad things when heated), plus of course your 150ml yeast mix.  If you use a sachet of easy bake yeast, make sure you still have a total of 300ml water.

Step 3:  Help your child to mix all the ingredients together - we usually use a spoon to stir it all initially so we don't get too sticky as Toby is not a fan of sticky fingers.  Once it starts to come together, proceed to step 4.

Step 4:  Tip the bowl out onto a clean surface and gently knead it by squishing, folding and stretching until it has a silky feel.  If it's sticky add more flour, if it's crumbly add more water.  Spelt flour is a bit different to wheat flour if you're used to baking with that - the gluten doesn't require such a heavy working so you don't need to knead it anything like as much.

Step 5:  Put on floured baking sheet/ floured loaf tin, cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place until it doubles in size (about 30 mins).

Step 6: Remove clingfilm and bake in a preheated oven at 230 degrees celsius for 15mins, then drop the temperature to 200 degrees celsius for the rest of the bake - about 15 more minutes but it depends on if your making buns, a large loaf or two small loaves.  I bake by nose mainly, then test by tapping the base of the bread - it should sound hollow.

Leave to cool then enjoy with yummy home made soup.

Notes on spelt: spelt is an ancient grain related to wheat but different from it.  It fell out of favour because it is harder to remove the hard outer case by threshing but modern machinery has now been developed to deal with this.  Nutritionally it is superior to wheat - the good bits are inside the grain and are not lost when it is processed as in wheat where the best bits are on the outside of the grain.  Spelt is higher in protein than wheat and contains all nine essential amino acids that our bodies need through diet because we can't make them ourselves. It is also higher in certain B vitamins and iron than wheat.  It is not gluten-free, but the gluten is different to that in wheat so some people who are intolerant to gluten get on better with spelt - it is not suitable for coeliacs though because it does still contain a form of gluten.

 Spelt is more delicate to use than wheat flour - if you use wheat, give it a lot more of a whalloping when you knead it - for at least 10 minutes - and I would recommend double proving wheat flour dough - let it rise, then knock it down and rise it again as this produces a better loaf that is easier on the tummy.

Notes on cooking safety: usual sensible stuff - clean hands, utensils and surfaces needed and keep little ones away from the oven and the bread when it is hot out of the oven.  I try to avoid them eating a lot of dough, but they've had no problems from munching on a bit of it.

Home made fruit lollies

Ollie doesn't react well to artificial colours and sweeteners, and for the sake of both boys teeth and general health we try to limit refined sugars.  One of the treats this therefore precludes is shop bought ice lollies.

This year I saw lolly moulds in the supermarket and thought we'd give it a go.  We have been making lollies with a high fruit content cordial or something refreshing like elderflower cordial watered down to at least the recommended dilution.  Last week though I saw a leaflet in Sainsburies explaining how to make fruit lollies and it seemed really simple so we gave it a go.

I substituted a couple of ingredients for things we had in the cupboard already, left out the chocolate dipped tip and added in passion fruit and this is what we came up with (Makes 8 of the size we used):

Roughly chop two large bananas and a mango
Blend with a squirt of agave syrup (the original recipe called for honey)
Tip into a pint jug, top up to the pint mark with plain yoghurt and stir well
Scoop half a passion fruit into the bottom of each mould
Pour or spoon the lolly mix in to the mould to the fill line and freeze overnight

Enjoy