Gluten-Free & Vegan Banana Chocolate Muffins

These are muffins for the serious chocoholics in your life. And even though they have a healthy amount of cocoa powder AND chocolate chips, they are also loaded with teff flour which is high in iron, they have a minimum of starch and sugar, and they come out moist and delicious.

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Gluten-Free & Vegan Banana Chocolate Muffins
Adapted from a combination of Chocolate Banana Bread and Banana Buckwheat Muffins in Nourishing Meals by Alissa Segersten.

Notes: As with all banana breads, the more ripe your bananas are, the better these muffins will be. I usually keep a growing stockpile of very ripe bananas in the fridge and make muffins or bread when I've saved up enough. For the milk, I use homemade nut milk and haven't tested this recipe with anything else, but I imagine whatever you have around will work just fine. Finally, when you get to the point of adding the melted coconut oil, everything should happen quickly after that, so have the dry ingredients, chocolate chips/chunks, and muffin tins all prepared beforehand. I've found that incorporating the melted coconut oil into a bowl of cold dry ingredients and going from there makes for lighter and fluffier muffins.

Recipe updated 12/10/2020.

Dry ingredients:
270 grams teff flour
30 grams arrowroot powder
30 grams / 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Wet ingredients:
2 cups mashed bananas (4-5 medium bananas)
1 cup nut milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup coconut sugar
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted, plus more for greasing muffin tin

Other ingredients:
1/3 - 1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate bar or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and brush your muffin pan with coconut oil.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

In another bowl, whisk together the mashed banana, nut milk, vanilla extract and coconut sugar. This mixture will probably be on the cold side if your bananas and milk both came out of the fridge. This is good. When well blended, add the melted coconut oil and quickly whisk to incorporate so the coconut oil doesn't solidify in one big clump. Then quickly add the dry ingredients and chocolate chips/chunks and whisk just until blended.

Divide the batter evenly among 12 muffin cups and bake for 25-30 minutes, until done. My oven bakes hot so they may take a few more minutes in your oven. Also, if you're using a stoneware muffin pan these will bake on the longer side as well (30 minutes in my oven).

Enjoy!

Lentils with Delicata Squash, Garam Masala & Cilantro

When I was pregnant, I claimed I didn't mind what my son's interests would become, as long as he found his passion in life. And that's still mostly true. But now that we cook together almost every day, I get so excited that he loves being in the kitchen, and I really want to nurture his interest in food and cooking. So I guess I do mind a little bit.

The day before yesterday we made pesto together and he diligently worked for 20 whole minutes(!) putting chopped parsley and garlic into the food processor, pouring olive oil without spilling it and trying to juice a lemon. It was the best.

One of the side benefits that I hope comes from our time in the kitchen is a more adventurous spirit on his part to try the foods we cook together. Like most babies starting solids, he would eat just about anything when he was around a year old - pureed steamed kale, pureed steamed broccoli, pureed kale AND broccoli! At the time, I didn't know any better and thought he would always be a perfect little eater. Foolish, I know.

We made this dish together a few nights ago and I feel like you're expecting to hear that it was SO good that he not only tried it, but ate an entire serving. Sorry! He wouldn't even taste it, despite the facts that (1) he thoroughly enjoyed pouring unseemly amounts of garam masala into the pan, and (2) I tried to make my best yummy noises as I was eating it. But, it was so good. My husband and I loved it, doesn't that count for something?

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Lentils with Delicata Squash, Garam Masala & Cilantro

Notes: You can find garam masala in the spice section of most grocery stores. Also, since making this recipe, roasted delicata squash has become one of my favorite things to make.  It's buttery, caramelizes really well, and doesn't require peeling. You might want to make extra to have for a snack.

1 1/2 cups cooked brown lentils (1/2 cup dry)
1 delicata squash, halved, and sliced into 1/4 inch half or quarter moons
1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 Tbsp garam masala spice blend
Olive oil
Salt to taste
Small bunch of cilantro, chopped

Cook the lentils. There's a great tutorial here.

Roast the delicata squash. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the squash in half length-wise and spoon out the seeds. Slice each half into 1/4 inch half moons - or quarter moons if your squash is on the larger side, as mine was for these pictures - and toss the pieces with some olive oil and sea salt on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes on the middle rack, tossing once half-way through. The pieces should be browned and a bit caramelized when done.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over somewhere between medium and medium-low heat (depending on how your stove cooks) and add the onions and garam masala. Let the onions slowly cook in the garam masala until softened, stirring regularly. It should take between 10 and 20 minutes for the onions to soften. Don't turn the heat up too high because spices can burn. When the onions are soft, turn off the heat and add the lentils, delicata squash and most of the cilantro. Toss together. Salt to taste. Serve garnished with the remainder of the cilantro.

Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as a side