Do you ever do that, buying way too much if something is on sale, without thinking about what you’ll with all of it? No? Well, I do (unfortunately). Just recently, I bought buckets full of blueberries, just because they were extremely cheap. Yes, buckets, two of them. Way too much of course, because after baking muffins with blueberries and putting loads of blueberries in my yogurt and smoothies, there was still about a bucket left.
It’s freezing and the weather forecast predicts even more severe cold weather coming up next week. All I want to do, is hide in my house, rolled in a thick blanket and hibernate. But… I’ll have to get outside and get food. Well, I also will have to get to work and get the kids to school. But I still can dream about hibernating. And the food part really isn’t that difficult. Just stock up enough and we’d be able to survive for a while. Especially stocking up on Greek yogurt and self-raising flour. Why? To make these super quick bagels of course!
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Although we’re not celebrating Valentines Day, I do like to make romantic treats or make something special for my loved ones. But that is not fixed on that one day per year. And these heart shaped red velvet waffles are perfect any day.
Red Velvet always makes me happy. Cake, waffles or cookies… I love the red colour. And as it is the colour of love, it’s perfect for Valentine’s Day. What better way to start that day with delicious waffles? And have them as a snack during the day. Plus dessert. With vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.
Did I mention yet it’s pumpkin season? Now you don’t need a reminder, do you? I just love, love, love pumpkin recipes. And since it’s October and we now can officially enjoy anything pumpkin, I’ll throw in another delicious recipe: pumpkin pancakes! Because we also love pancakes. For breakfast, lunch or dinner.
These pumpkin pancakes are very easy to make, especially if you have pumpkin puree ready to use. You can use canned pumpkin, but fresh homemade pumpkin puree, without any additives, is so much better. These pancakes are so light and fluffy. And, they are also gluten and dairy free.
Have you ever made Bread Pudding before? It’s a perfect way to use up stale bread and I can’t believe I have never tried it. This recipe is one of those that are the result of throwing together some ingredients that need to be used before you have to throw them out. Another recipe that I came up with during our holiday at the farm.
I had a whole baguette left from a barbecue two days earlier. Too dry and too hard to eat it like that. There is a lot you can do with a stale baguette:
Apricots – the season for this summer stone fruit is in full swing. They are juicy and full of flavor. Funny enough though, I don’t like them fresh that much. While I prefer most fruits and vegetables fresh over the canned ones, I do like canned apricots better. And I like them dried. Both not the best options when it comes to sugar, of course. The canned apricots are happily soaking in sugar syrup and the dried ones are (just like any dried fruit) little sugar bombs. So I try to avoid both (not always succeeding).
‘In the morning’ – that is this week’s Crea-Cross Challenge and if you ask a food blogger what he/she associates with ‘in the morning’, it most likely is breakfast. Okay, and probably coffee. Coffee is always on my mind, but in this case, breakfast popped into my mind straight away. There are so many great breakfast recipes. I thought long and hard about what I would share. Pancakes, bread, scones, breakfast muffins… I settled for: GRANOLA!
Spring is well on it’s way and summer is around the corner. That means fresh fruits, berries in particular, are available in abundance. I love to eat all kinds of berries just plain. This time of year, they are so juicy and sweet, absolutely delicious. But I also like to cook and bake with them. One of my favorite things to make? Jam! It preserves the vibrant colors and the sweet taste and I can enjoy them a bit longer. I recently bought 1 kg of blueberries. I know, that’s a lot of blueberries, but they were so good. I simply could not resist. But eating a whole kilo straight up was a bit too much. So I made me some blueberry jam!
A new way to use up overripe bananas: BANANA WAFFLES!
Yes, you read that right: banana WAFFLES. I have made a fair share of banana bread, bars and muffins in my life. I’ve used loads of (overripe) bananas in smoothies and ice cream (my freezer is filled to the rim with frozen banana). Or pancakes.
Not only do I love the taste, I also love the fact that bananas naturally sweeten your baked goods or other ‘concoctions’, which means no or less sugar has to be added. Always thinking of new ways to use up overripe bananas. But never did it cross my mind to make waffles out of bananas. No idea why not.
I love pancakes. Especially pancakes American style, i.e. small, pillowy pancakes. The pancakes we are normally used to around here, are rather flat pancakes and as large as a regular dinner plate. Nothing wrong with that, but I often can’t even finish one. And I love to use different toppings. So the smaller pancakes come in very handy. I can eat a few and top one with syrup (especially if there is bacon involved), another one with strawberry preserves and maybe a third with Nutella. Whenever the kids request pancakes, I mostly make my buttermilk spelt pancakes. Always a winner. But I had recently seen these lovely choc and cherry pancakes over at Food, Family and Fun with Alexis Knibbs and I could not think of anything else than chocolate pancakes.
Love fresh bread, but hate the kneading and long waiting? Or are you like me, simply forgetting that you wanted to bake bread and realize just an hour before lunch that there is no fresh bread in the house? Then soda bread is perfect for you. I really don’t hate the kneading, it can actually be very soothing and relaxing to work a yeast dough for 10 minutes. And the waiting time can be filled with other activities. And I love the yeasty smell of rising dough!
It’s been a while since I last participated in the Crea-Cross Challenge. Every week, Ilse posts a prompt on her creative blog Kreanimo and everyone is invited to interpret that week’s prompt in their own way. If you want to learn more about the challenge, get awesome creative ideas and meet other creative souls, hop on over to Ilse’s blog! There you can read the rules and find all prompts for the rest of the year.
Pancakes are always a hit. Whether I make them for breakfast, lunch or dinner (we looove pancakes for dinner, especially if I make a few with bacon as well), they always go down well. A kid’s favorite, but I think grown ups are just as happy as the kids when pancakes are being served. Our all time favorite probably are the buttermilk spelt pancakes. We make these a lot.
But sometimes, you need something different. Or you want to balance a bit by cutting down on carbs. Or you have friends over, who can’t have gluten. Then these banana pancakes come in handy. I had tried banana pancakes before and really liked them. But somehow, I hadn’t made them since that first try. Why not? Just hadn’t thought about them, really. Now lately, the internet is bursting with recipes for banana pancakes. And for me, the internet works very well as a reminder. Now I was being reminded that I had to make these pancakes again. And: this is just another delicious way to use up an (over)ripe banana. These pancakes are super simply, super tasty, grain and gluten free.
Do you keep track of all the national and world food days? I don’t. Well, I didn’t. I have now made a list of all the national and world food holidays and hopefully, I will remember to look at it in time. Most of them are celebrated mainly in the US, but are getting more known all over the world. Foodies are more and more taking these food days to promote their dishes and recipes. So how can I not do this and stay behind?
I don’t know about you, but after all that baking, cooking and eating, I crave the more simple things in life. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to bake and cook (and eat) a lot, I can spend hours, even days, in the kitchen preparing the yummiest and most scrumptious foods. But it doesn’t always have to be that fancy and my stomach currently screams ‘NO MORE MULTIPLE COURSES’ at me.
Say what?!?! Yes, it is a thing. Homemade peanut butter combined with white chocolate… this is heaven on earth!
Yep, you read that right. White Chocolate Peanut Butter. Outrageous? Yes. Good? Definitely!!
Peanut butter and chocolate. Familiar combo. But peanut butter and WHITE chocolate? Never had it, never even heard of it. But with so many things, once you google it, you get I don’t know how many hits. But I didn’t dare google this. Maybe I am the first, maybe there have been many many before me who have tried and tested this combo. Which most likely is the case. I’d like to be the mastermind behind this, though I seriously doubt that. But hey, I can have those dreams just once in a while. Because, really, this is good. I’m so chuffed!
This truly is the BEST healthy banana bread out there! Gluten free, no oil/butter, no (refined) sugar!
Gosh, I have tried so many banana bread recipes, I can’t even count them. Some were too dry, most of them were too ‘banana’, too dense/moist/mushy, overly sweet, wouldn’t rise… There is one banana bread though, that is the BEST banana bread, if you don’t mind using sugar, regular flour etc, and it’s this banana bread by Nikki from Chef In Training. This is serious business, if it comes to banana breads. I will gladly make this one again. And again. And again.
What do low-carbers miss the most? I think it’s fairly safe to say that it’s bread. I’m not a die hard low-carber, I still eat bread, pasta, rice etc., but in great moderation. I do try to cut back on carbs where ever possible. But bread… I’ve tried a lot of recipes. Some were all right, most I would not like to call bread. So eggy, it resembles more of a baked omelet than bread.
