Banana Muffins with Gluten Free Flax & Ancient Grains All-Purpose Flour

Lately I haven't had a lot of time for breakfast, my mornings are just to busy to make a good meal, and I know I'm not alone on this.
Breakfast is an important part of the day and shouldn't be forgotten, so what do I do?
I binge bake.
That's right, on a non-super busy day I binge bake, making way more muffins and mini loaves of bread then I need. My favorite to make? Banana bread. Mr beam and I sometimes can't eat all the bananas we get before they start to over ripen, so they go in the freezer until I make banana bread muffins.

Muffin recipes make a dozen or more muffins and even though I might be able to stuff my face full of most of them doesn't mean I should. So I divide them into pairs of 4 and put the extras in plastic freezer bags. I can take a bag out the night before a busy day and Mr. Beam and I have two muffins each for the mornings breakfast. It works our wonderfully.

I've been playing around with different banana bread recipes, none of which are the same, so you don't get a recipe today. But I can share a Gluten Free flour mix that I've discovered and love. It's  Gluten free Flax & Ancient Grains All-Purpose Flour by Flax Premium Gold.  I found it at Costco and have used it in just about everything,  You could say I'm in love with it.

Making banana bread is really easy and there are a ton of recipes out there to get you started, just find one that sounds good to you. Do you like walnuts in your banana bread? How about chocolate chips? Want it more lite and fluffy or dense and squishy? I personally like walnuts AND chocolate chips, and for it to be dense and squishy (I also like adding cinnamon to my mix). Feel free to be creative, as long as it's something you'd want to eat.

It takes me less than 10 minutes to mix up the batter and throw the filled muffin tins into the oven, it's the cooking and cooling that take forever. When its all done I have  some warm muffins to eat and 2 sets of muffins for those busy morning.

A side of Fennel and Beets

I needed a side dish for dinner, something that was on the healthier side, and my fridge was kinda empty. I threw something together for the sake of having a vegetable on my plate.

It turned out pretty tasty.

 I had beets and a bulb of fennel. I chopped them up, tossed them with oil, salt and pepper, and put it all in the oven.

The beets would of looked better if they solid red or golden, but they're earthy flavor was complimented with the flavors of the fennel. I ate all of mine and then some, Mr. Beam on the other hand, wouldn't touch them because it 'Has beets'.

Smashed red potatoes

This is quickly becoming my favorite way to have potatoes. It's like combining French Fries and Mashed potatoes into one dish. Who doesn't love that idea?

Start with small red potatoes.

Cover generously with oil, salt, and pepper.

Place on a baking sheet and cook for 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Once soft enough, remove from oven  and smash with a flat object, I used a glass cup.

 Smash each of the potatoes

 Once they are all smashed put them back in the over for another 5-10 minutes, depending on how crunchy you want the edges.

Bad picture, but they are done, and delicious.

Accidents and feeling betrayed....

My day job had me working longer hours than normal, I wasn't eating as well as I normally do and the heat was taking it's toll on my body. They sent me home early one night, knowing that I wasn't  feeling well, and I went to the store and got electrolyte powder and a probiotic to help me bounce back, I needed to take better care of myself. I walked like a slug around the store, my head was pounding and I couldn't think straight on what I wanted, I ended up walking down all the isles twice. The next day I felt worse, my joints hurt, I couldn't look at bright lights, and my stomach wasn't happy, but pushed through it and worked anyway. The next morning I could hardly get out of bed and had slept 9+ hours. Something wasn't right. I grabbed my probiotic and while pouring myself a glass I read parts of the label. Funny, it didn't say gluten free like it used too. I stopped pouring and turned the carton around, it stated that it was dairy-free, soy-free, and vegan. My head was foggy and I squinted at the tiny print below (and I mean tiny, it's the smallest print on the entire carton, I don't need glasses but found it hard to read), "This product contains low levels of gluten from organic oat flour and barley malt".

When I thought I was taking care of myself I was actually poisoning myself.
I was so angry. Yes, it ultimately was my fault, I should of read the label and it's teeny tiny print, but I felt betrayed. I had bought this probiotic before and it had been gluten free. In my foggy state at the store I grabbed things I recognized as being safe, I just wanted to feel better.

In the tiny print, just below where if informs you of the gluten is also states 'Try our new gluten-free quarts with green caps!"

Sorry, I don't think I can ever trust your product again. Even if it has a green cap this time.

Kitchen visit, trout, calamari and sauteed beets

In my last post I shared the wonderful Ice Cream Cake I make with my cousin Emily while I was on vacation. In this post I will share the rest of our meal. Just keep in mind that we shared cooking duties so I don't have as many pictures of the cooking process... actually I'm missing a lot of photos I would normally have, but I was on vacation so we're making due with what we have.

The second day of my mini vacation Emily and I decided to take it easy, lounging around the house watching movies and cooking. To some people I'm sure cooking on their vacation is out of the question. Your relaxing, why not order a pizza, right?

Emily and I both enjoy cooking, even more so when we are together, sharing recipes and new ingredients. As kids we were always hanging out in the kitchen during the holidays, not only to sneak into food, but it was our hangout spot. It's where the magic happened. The kitchen was always loud, most of it from laughter. Cooking is a comfort for us and not necessarily because we get to eat it afterwards.

A whole rainbow trout.

Emily loves fish but had never prepared one whole before, or grilled it on a BBQ, so I decided to show her my favorite way to make rainbow trout. We started out with the whole fish, like in the picture, I showed her how to trim the fins and made sure it was clean on the inside. I raided her cabinets for Italian spices and salt and mixed them together in a little bowl. It had basil, oregano, thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and ground pepper in it. I got it as close to the Italian salt rub I had at home (which I got at whole foods last year and love, But I haven't been able to find it again), It smelled like the beginnings of a pizza. I sprinkled my herb mix inside the body cavity of the fish and then wrapped the whole thing in aluminum foil. It was put on the grill while we cooked the rest of our meal. Sadly this is the only picture of the trout. We got so hungry by the time everything was done that we forgot to take pictures. It was perfectly cooked and I showed Emily how to remove the bones while keeping  as much of the fish intact as possible.

Sense being diagnosed with Celiacs Emily hasn't had some of her favorite foods. Most are not pre-made gluten free or are very time consuming to make yourself. Emily had not had Calamari in over 4 years. I was going to change that.

The hardest thing about making Calamari? 

Finding the squid. Most local stores have certain seafood staples and squid isn't usually one of them. Thankfully Whole Foods  tends to carry it, both the whole head/body (for stuffing) and pre-sliced into rings, which is perfect for Calamari.

You make it just like you would breaded chicken, dip it in the egg mixture, then rice flour, then back in the egg, then to the bread crumbs. Make sure it gets a nice coating of each layer.

All breaded and waiting for the fry oil to be hot enough.

Golden, delicious, and cooked just long enough. If you cook then too long they get really chewy.

Now I can't have Calamari without tartar sauce,  it's just wouldn't seem right to me without it.

The problem? Emily doesn't use mayo, she doesn't like it. Thankfully she had a vegan-mayo substitute. Normally I don't touch stuff like that, I prefer having as minimal processed food as possible, the ingredients in this stuff is processed before it is even processed into a vegan-mayo.  Anyway, I stubbornly wanted my tartar sauce and used it. We had gotten young garlic at the store, the kind with the bulb and the green stalk. I had never eaten it before and wanted to try it, so I chopped some up and put it in the vegan-mayo, along with some dill and pickles. It was oh so yummy with the Calamari. 

With all the seafood, we needed our vegetables, so I chopped up some golden beets, more of the young garlic and added the leftover Italian spices from the trout and I sauteed it all. The picture above is from before it all was cooked, once this was done we became ravenous animals and no more pictures where taken.