Cheeky monkey banana bread

This banana bread recipe was given to me by a dear friend of mine. It worked for both our cheeky monkeys as it is vegan-he cheeky monkey is allergic to eggs, and mine to dairy, so this really appealed to me on many levels...add in the fact that it is delicious, and we have a winner :D
I am currently auditioning my old recipes as entries for the school bake sale at the Christmas fair, and this recipe literally fell into my lap. As i said above, this is a really fabulous recipe, but i wanted to put a little twist on it, so after scanning the internet, i decided to put a crumble topping on it. The outcome is divine! You can make it with or without, but as the recipe makes two loaves, may i suggest you make one with, and one without? :D
Without further ado, here is the banana bread recipe:
Take 3.5 cups of plain flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 tbsp+1 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda and 0.5 tsp salt and mix together in a bowl. add 3 or 4 mashed bananas, 1/3 cup veg oil, and 1/4 cup soy/oat/coconut milk (i use Koko coconut milk). Mix well. You will end up with a very thick, chunky batter. Divide between two loaf tins and then (if you want) add the crumble topping...0.25 cup of plain flour, 0.25 cup of sugar and 0.25 cup of oats, cut in 2 tbsp until it resembles breadcrumbs. divide into 2 and spread over the top of the banana breads. Bake at 180C for 50 minutes...enjoy!

See in the dark chicken pie

My children absolutely love chicken pie so over the last couple of weeks, i have been subtly altering the recipe so that i can include more goodness into them :)
First things first-the pie dough. Take 4 cups plain flour, add 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 cups of water. Mix into a dough and put into the fridge to rest for half an hour.
Heat oven to  200C , and prepare the filling. Today i used leftover chicken from yesterdays roast chicken. Prepare paste -Place 1 can mushrooms, 1 carrot peeled, and 100g pumpkin into a blender until it comes together in a paste.

Dice one onion.

Peel and dice one potato.

Roll out pastry until it is very thin, and using a small plate as a guide, cut circles of pastry out.

Place one teaspoon of the veggie paste in the middle of the circle, then place a teaspoon of diced onion on top, cover the onion with a teaspoon of the diced potato,

and top that with small pieces of chicken (you can also use chicken mince).

 Paint around the filling with water, and then fold over the pastry and use a large mouth cup to cut and seal the pie. Brush the pie with egg and place onto your paper lined baking tray. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

sweet tooth :)

I had an urge for something sweet, so i decided to whip up an old favourite :) This cupcake recipe was a staple of mine once upon a time, as george was unable to eat eggs or dairy. Now we are down to dairy but he is able to eat egg, so i have moved on to other recipes, but every once in a while i like to dust this recipe off, as it makes a cupcake that is so light and fluffy it is unbelievable!

Here we go, take a bowl and place 1.5 cups plain flour,1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa, 1 tsp baking soda,1/2 tsp salt, 1 cup sugar,1/2 cup vegetable oil,1 cup cold water in a bowl and mix well. Add 2 tbs vinegar, and again mix until the mixture is all one colour (the vinegar will start a chemical reaction with the baking soda, and you will see the mixture will have a trail of a slighter lighter colour in it). Pour the mixture into 12 cupcake cases, and cook for 20 minutes at 180c/350f.
Make sure they cool before you ice them!

Chocolate fudge icing finishes this cupcake off in a divine way! Melt together 3 tbs of butter (i used dairy free), and 100g chocolate chips. Then add icing sugar until it is thick but still a little sloppy. It will semi harden on the cake, but will be glossy and delicious as you can see from the photos above!

Cupcake cuties

My daughter got a cupcake machine for christmas, and i decided that since today was valentine's day, i would break it out and make some mini treats for my little ones. Of course i had to make two batters, as George is a chocoholic, and Miss Tina is the vanilla queen..so here goes: I used the same recipe for both, just added cocoa (3tsp) for the boy's. Basic recipe: 4 tsp each of flour, sugar and cocoa(if needed), add a pinch of salt, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1/2 cup of milk. It is really that easy! Now i made little teeny, tiny ones, and it made 14, but i would say it would probably make around 6 normal sized cupcakes. I used the cupcake maker and it took about 6 minutes for each batch, but i would say if you are cooking normal cupcakes, i would go
with 12-14 minutes at 180. From this basic recipe
 you can add choc chips, dried fruit, dollops of jam etc to change the flavour- it is really a wonderfully versatile recipe.
 I finished them off today with a simple icing,
just icing sugar and water (i added cocoa for
the boy's icing, and pink icing to the girls).
....aren't they sweet?

Going coco for coconut!!

A friend challenged me to try my hand at coconut macaroons but i didn;t have any dessicated coconut to hand, so i dutifully went and bought some..at the same time another post popped up on my facebook for coconut and carrot bars, and i thought to myself..ooh, i have two carrots in the fridge, lets have a go at that :)
This led to a baking spree, and it was only after i had used my very last drop of golden syrup that i realised i hadn't made my coconut macaroons :(
So here you go- three ways to use up the dessicated coconut sitting at the back of your cupboard :)
First up the coconut and carrot bars! I used the recipe from cooking for busy mums (find it here )and they were lovely although i couldn't quite make up my mind wether they were supposed to be savory or sweet...they are rather moreish though!

Next up, chocolate zucchini muffins, i followed the recipe posted here by vegie smugglers here
  and finished them off with a chocolate icing-half a cup of
 semi sweet chocolate chips(dairy free of course), quarter of a cup coconut milk and a cup of icing sugar..check out these cuties...















And last but not least, little cups of sunshine...Hawaian coconut cupcakes! Again from vegie smugglers, follow the link here here these i finished off with a rather more grown up icing...I used the pineapple juice and icing sugar as suggested but i added 2 tablespoons of bacardi :D These are really delicious, even without the icing

So there you are, three delicious dairy free treats, all using that lovely dessicated coconut :) Enjoy!!!

Icecream time!

Summers here in Cyprus are very long and VERY hot! Icecream tends to keep us going, and although i have my old faithful chocolate icecream recipe, i haven't had much success with a vanilla icecream recipe...until NOW! My wonderful father came to visit last month and with him he brought this recipe. It fell at my feet yesterday (quite literally as i was tidying up today) and i thought i'd give it a go :)

So here it is, the best vegan vanilla icecream recipe that i have tried so far (warning..you will never buy shop bought icecream again!!)

 In a blender, combine the soymilk powder (1.5 cups-i used the whole packet of SoVita soy drink vanilla powder), water (2/3 cup) and soymilk (3.5 cups i used Koko coconut milk) until well blended.

Combine the soymilk mixture with the sugar (1/2 cup), vanilla (1 tbsp) and apple cider vinegar (1 tsp)in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stirring constantly, cook until the mixture is thick and syrupy in consistency. Pour the mixture into a 9”x 5”metal loaf pan or other medium-sized metal or aluminum pan. Place the pan in the freezer uncovered for 1 hour.

Then you can either put into an icecram maker and let it do it's thing or if you don;t have such a machine, scrape the ice cream into a blender and blend on high for 30 seconds, or until mixture is creamy. Place the mixture back in the pan and back into the freezer. Repeat this procedure 3 more times at 30 minute intervals, allowing the ice cream to chill in the freezer covered for 1 hour after the last blend before serving.

Serve ice cream cold, adding your choice of toppings if desired.

The children naturally had theirs in a cone-with a cherry on top! 

We (hubby and myself) opted for a little more grownup way to eat, with some hot apple pie!

It is creamy, delicious, and you can eat it any way you want...Enjoy!

When life gives you lemons...

So here in Cyprus it is lemon season, and we have these big, fat, juicy lemons. So, i'm sitting here, looking at these lovely lemons, and a thought occurs to me that we can be a bit canny, and make some lovely treats, using EVERY part of this zesty fruit. So here goes :)

First up is lemon Glyko...or spoon sweet. This is a traditional sweet here in Cyprus (nothing diet about it as it is fruit preserved in a thick syrup)

First get your lemons together, give them a good wash, and then remove the zest (the yellow part) either by grating (which i personally can;t do without damaging my hands) or by using a sharp knife, just peel a very thin layer off the top of the lemon. (first super tip- you need to find fat lemons with thick skin- this will not work with thin skinned lemons!).

 Then score the lemon around (in segments) and peel off the white 'pith"..this is what you will be using to make your spoon sweet. You can choose to make thick segments or thin (we prefer thin) but if you make the thick ones, you can roll it into an attractive shape before you put it into the syrup. 

Put your lemon peel into a saucepan and weigh (you want to know how much lemon peel you have as you will need the number in order to work out how much sugar to use. It is basically 1:1 ration between fruit and sugar, and then add 1.5 cups water). Then fill up the pan with water and boil the peel for 5 minutes... and repeat twice more (this is to get rid of the bitterness). DO NOT throw away this water- we will be using it later for another recipe! When you have finished this part, drain the water, and now we get on to the final syrupy part :) So now, armed with the weight of the fruit, add an equal amount of sugar, and one and a half cups of water and boil until the syrup sets..this will be around 1 and a half hours. leave to cool and then put into a jar. They are ready to eat immediately :)

Onto recipe no 2...remember all that lemony water that we had left?Well, i'm going to let you into a little secret- how to make Mama Michaelides' Moonshine (or Posh Squash as it was nicknamed at a party i went to last night!). You need 1 gallon (or 4 litres) of this water- if you don't have enough lemony water, just top it up with normal water, add the sugar (2 kilos) and mix until it dissolves, then cool and put into your container (i use one of those 5 gallon barrels that we usually use for water). Once the water is cooled, add the juice of 6 lemons, raisins (225g), and the yeast (30g-i use 3x 11g packets). Seal the top by placing cling film over the top of the barrel (with some pin pricks in it-the yeast will emit gas, if you don't prick the clingfilm, it will pop!) and leave in a cool place for 2 weeks to do it's stuff. After that time, you can rack it into your bottles although it will need time to clear to the fine sunshiney yellow stuff :) Please note you will have to strain the liquid before you bottle it to get all the 'bits' out).