Banana bread + organic creme fraiche + Better Food Spicy Apple and Citrus Preserve
Experiment: Spoke a first draft instead of writing it. Took me five minutes. Could this be the way forward?
Here is what I said (with few amends).
Due to a delicate digestion, I think a lot about how I feel after what I have eaten.
The food is delicious. But how does it sit in my gut?
So I was interested to read in Natural Lifestyle an article by nutritionist Christine Bailey about healing the inflamed gut. A new idea. Is it possible?
The article recommended homemade yogurt (I am a believer), and well-cooked vegetables with meat broth, avoiding all grains.
The article gave a recipe for banana bread using ground pecan nuts instead of flour. No sugar. Honey instead.
Finding-out how to grind the nuts was a mission.
I even bought a new hand blender. I drove myself and the assistant at Kitchens mad questioning the nut-grinding function of every machine and found all nuts when ground eventually go to a paste because of the heat.
So it seemed nut-grinding might be a Shangri-La illusion.
So I bought my £30 Philips hand blender with a grinding attachment and further research found freezing the nuts might stop them getting too oily too fast.
I froze the nuts. I used the nut blender attachment, I found with short burts and not expecting too much fineness, I ground the nuts. It worked.
Pecan nuts are more expensive than flour. Nuts are more expensive than flour.
Here is Christine Bailey‘s recipe. I changed it: got rid of the baking agents, using eggs to make it rise, and two bananas instead of one. It filled one small and one big loaf tin. You could substitute the pecans for other ground nuts.
Grind/blend 10 1/2 oz (300g) frozen pecan nuts. A cinnamon stick adds grit to oily nuts. Add 2 tsp ground cinnamon to ground nuts. Whizz four eggs until airy then whizz with two tablespoons of olive oil (I used melted ghee butter) and one large or two small ripe banana until airy and smooth. Combine gently with nuts and cinnamon. Pour into two oiled loaf tins. Bake 180C Gas Mark 4 for 40 minutes until firm to touch.
The banana bread tasted a bit worthy and I did go non-vegan spreading it with organic butter.
It must be noted, it was easy to eat, not sickly-eating sweetness
and afterwards my gut felt good.
It would not have been so happy with the grain.
The banana bread is a keeper but it does need a spread and I wonder what you might add to luxuriate the baked bread.
And have you grappled with nut-grinding?
Real Food Lover 
Interesting Elisabeth. I make a lot of banana bread and the addition of pecan sounds very tastey. I don’t think I can be asked to grind nuts though so will stick with flour. I make my bread when the bananas are turning black (which is often the case after a week or so in my place!). It matures really well but unfortunately my 15 year old son keeps raiding the cake tin so it’s never around for more than a few days.
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Hi John
Don’t give up on the pecans!
Using the nut/coffee bean grinder attachment on the £30 hand blender makes grinding the frozen nuts easy.
Or use ground almonds with the flour?
Did you mean asked or arsed?! Either way, I think I understood.
Happy December
Elisabeth
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Ho, ho, ho! I will persevere. Thanks for all the great tips and all your inspirational actions throughout 2011 Elisabeth – I’ve loved every word you’ve written. Have a great Xmas 🙂
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I like your seasonal laugh!
Thank you so much for your encouragement and support, John.
What can I say without sounding trite? I appreciate!
Have a super Christmas you too.
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Grinding nuts? Freezing nuts? Shopping to find the grinder that grinds the nuts? Am going nuts just thinking about it! Seriously, keep up the good work, Elisabeth. I do know that almond milk is made by soaking the almonds in milk overnight and then smooshing them.
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Very funny! Yeah, it’s NUTS.
Re almond milk…funnily enough I have some cashew nuts soaking in the fridge as we speak. The raw foodies do a lot of nut soaking. I wish I knew why. Thinks: must find out.
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Yum, sounds delicious and I love the idea of it being good for your stomach. There is another great recipe that involves grinding walnuts and adding them to raw chocolate and soaked dates! I have been wanting to do this but have been looking for the right equipment – not wanting to go the full hog and get a food processor. How do you think your grinder would do with soaked dates…..?
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Roz – thanks
Indeed I have been thinking that the banana bread needs some soaked sultanas and/or dates for a bit of moisture.
YES. I definitely recommend my £30 (actually £29.99) Philips hand blender with the DA-DA nut-grinder attachment.
In fact I have in this short time (she confesses coyly) come to love my nut-grinder.
For instance, this morning I whizzed up mango into puree to go over yogurt. So it worked as a mini-blender.
If it can grind nuts, it can definitely whizz up the soaked dates. So yes, no need for major culinary equipment investment.
Like the sound of that cake….(hint hint).
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It makes a delicious raw chocolate cake, rather like the bliss bombs you so kindly proffer me…
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I once did an experiment with raw food cooking. It was surprisingly easy. There is a contraption on which you lay out say, tomatoes, and they dry nicely into tasty bits. I know they use a lot of nuts in raw food cooking. And, unrelated to the topic at hand, below is my link to a youtube video of my song Psychedelic Haze, recorded at a loadso’fun weekend put on by the London Songwriters Company headed by composer Julian Marshall.
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Here is the link again:
Philippa
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The recommendations you describe here sound like they fall into the ‘Paleolithic Diet’ category, being popularised in Bristol at the moment by Max Drake. A friend of mine is seeing the benefits and I want to try it in the spring. Here is Max Drake’s website and can I say I am looking forward to trying your banana cake in a minute, Elisabeth. Sound delish-as does the braised cabbage and apples you’re cooking now.
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Nadia
Thanks for info on the ‘Paleolithic Diet’.
The idea of the Stone-Age No-Grain diet SUDDENLY starts to make sense to me.
Here is my cartoon approach to history: Grain entered the human diet with the start of cultivation and agriculture. This is where it all started to go wrong! Where we humans starting getting territorial and protective of our grain stores…
So – you liked Pecan banana bread then, eh?!
And thanks for encouraging the quick-braised cabbage, apples, caraway seeds, cinnamon with splashes of casserole-sausage stew, puy lentils, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce and cream experiment. It sounds outrageous and it was bloody delicious.
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Hi Phil
Thanks for video of you playing Psychedelic Haze.
WOW! Love.
And I hear other do too………..
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Loved watching this again – there’s something magical about it x
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On Monday 5th I will be interviewing Max Drake on BCfm’s 2020 Show. 6pm. 93.2fm. Tune in to learn all about the stone age diet.
As for the banana bread -gimme MORE (ubba ubba!)
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Hi Elisabeth, weirdly enough I made some banana bread a week or so ago and the recipe called for ground hazelnuts, which I thought sounded delicious. However I didn’t have any so used a bag of ground almonds (lazy I know, and nothing in comparison to your trip out to get a grinder) but this was excellent. Not in spirit of being particularly healthy I added chopped walnuts and dark chocolate chips, it was very delicious indeed. I like the idea of using honey not sugar here though.
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Yes, Claire – I have used ground almonds too for this recipe – saves a lot of faffing, eh?!
But the nut grinder on my new £30 quid hand blender (well-deserved as last two have been second-hand, she adds guiltily) is well worth it: grinds nuts, seeds AND grates (well…pulverises) chocolate.
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You mIght want to try grating the nuts instead of grinding them. Use a rotary cheese grater, like you would use for parmesan. (Mine is made by Zyliss.) 300 grams of pecans will make a nice fluffy mountain of grated nuts. It will take about 5 minutes. It works with all kinds of nuts, walnuts and pecans grate easily, then come hazelnuts, almonds are the most work, but well worth it!
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Thanks, Eleanor – that is a super-practical answer!
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If that was the cake at Jessica’s, it was delicious. It was bananaish, substantial, a good start to my day. And it did feel wholesome, without even knowing worthiness was its name, but it sure was its game. I didnt feel the need to zip it up. On the subject of cakes, Elisabeth made a heavenly lemon cake.
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Thank you, Gee. Yes, the banana bread you tasted was the one and the same described on this blog. Thank you! I am so glad you – a gourmet – approved!
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