Kids Club Smoothie

Or, as Hammie calls it, “Klids Club.” :)

This simple idea came from the Whole Foods by our house, before they were owned by Amazon. They used to make a free “Kids Club” smoothie which - as far as I can tell - all the kids loved. Mine certainly did, so now we make it at home. You can’t mess it up - there is no proportion of frozen strawberries, orange juice and bananas that won’t taste good. Use what you have and it’ll be great!

My kids like to drink this any old time, but it’s also excellent for cold and flu season as it is hydrating, easy to drink, and very high in vitamin C.

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Kids Club Smoothie

Notes: This can easily be scaled up or down. Also, I haven’t tried it, but I bet you could successfully substitute some fresh or frozen pineapple, peaches or nectarines for some of the strawberries.

Special equipment:
Vitamix or other high-powered blender

2 1/2 cups frozen strawberries
1 1/2 cups orange juice
1 medium to large banana

Put the strawberries into your blender and pour in the orange juice. If you don’t have a high powered blender it may be helpful to let the strawberries soften in the juice for a few minutes before blending. Add the banana and blend it up until smooth.

Makes 2 large servings (as shown in the picture), or 4 medium servings

Gluten-Free One Bowl Banana Bread

When I make breads and muffins I try to decrease the sweetener as much as possible. As far as sugar level goes, I've found that in some (not all) recipes you can significantly decrease the amount with minimal sacrifice, particularly recipes that are also sweetened with fruits like bananas, dates and prunes. But if you'd like to make a "special occasion" banana bread, you might increase the coconut sugar from 1/2 cup to 2/3 cup. Conversely, and particularly if you’re using raisins as one of your add-ins, you could even go as low as 1/3 cup coconut sugar.

This bread always goes fast at our house. It is especially welcome in the afternoon with a cup of tea or decaf coffee.

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Gluten-Free One Bowl Banana Bread
Adapted from the One Bowl Banana Bread on 101cookbooks.com

Note: The coconut milk here is from a can, not the milk substitute beverage that comes in cartons. If you don't have a can on hand, the original recipe says you can sub in yogurt or sour cream - I haven't tried either but trust that they work.

2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large bananas)
1/2 cup coconut sugar (see text above)
1/3 cup melted coconut oil, plus more for oiling the loaf pan
1/4 cup full-fat coconut milk (from a can, see note)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
60 grams teff flour
60 grams brown rice flour (I use sprouted)
65 grams sorghum flour (I use sprouted)
80 grams arrowroot OR tapioca starch (also called flour)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Optional Add-Ins:
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips / chunks or 
1/4 cup raisins plus 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or
1/4 cup raisins plus 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and use coconut oil to grease your loaf pan.

Break the eggs into a large bowl and blend well. Add the mashed banana, coconut sugar, coconut oil, coconut milk and vanilla extract and mix well. Add the flours and arrowroot powder and mix again. Then sprinkle the baking soda and sea salt over the top of the batter and quickly mix one more time just until combined. Add the chocolate chips / raisins / walnuts if using, briefly stir once more and turn the batter out into your prepared loaf pan.

Bake until done about 50-60 minutes, when the top is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean, or mostly clean. Exactly how long this will take depends on your oven and what kind of loaf pan you're baking in. I use a cast iron pan (which requires a longer bake time) and bake this bread for 58 minutes.

Turn out onto a cooling rack after the bread has been out of the oven for a few minutes, let cool, slice and serve.

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!