Strawberry Kiwi Smoothie Bowl (Paleo)

Hello all! It’s been a long time since my last post. For that, I apologize.

Clearly I am not good at keeping promises when it comes to posting.

In my defense though, cooking in Thailand ended up being more difficult than I originally thought. Between traveling on the weekends and teaching during the week, it was hard to find the energy to go to the grocery store and find the correct food items when they were all written in a foreign language. Not to mention, lugging everything back home in 100 + degree weather.

Interestingly, cooking in Thailand is more expensive than just going out to eat (a complete opposite from here in the United States). In fact, most Thai people eat out rather than make their own meals. You can read more about my experiences in Thailand here.

But, as of last week, I am back home in the United States! Meaning, back to home-cooked food.

One of the many things I already miss about Thailand is the fresh fruit. I can’t even describe the freshness… I would often go down the street to the fruit stand and have the fruit lady cut me up fresh pineapple/guava/papaya/coconut/cantaloupe. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

Sometimes, I would take the fruit back to my apartment and mash it up with a potato masher to make a fruit smoothie bowl.

And once, when I was visiting Pai in Northern Thailand, I had the most amazing smoothie bowl at a place called Bom Bowls:

Now that I am back home, I have my food processor to do the blending for me (a bit easier than using a potato masher…)

Luckily, I also had the foresight to bring home some hand-made coconut bowls from Thailand. Now I can pretend to be back in Thailand on a regular basis 🙂

Strawberry and Kiwi Smoothie Bowl

Ingredients:

1 banana, sliced and frozen

7 oz strawberries, sliced and frozen

1 kiwi (I kept the peel on)

1 handful of fresh spinach leaves

1/2 cup almond milk (or coconut water or water)

2 tbsp almond butter

1-2 tbsp honey (optional)

Pinch of salt

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients in a strong food processor or blender. Pulse until smooth. Pour into bowls and top with a garnish of foods (sliced fruits, dried fruits, berries, oats, nuts, chocolate chips, etc.)

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Banana Flour Chocolate Banana Muffins and A Farewell

Well, it’s currently 1:13am in the morning and in a few short hours I will be on my flight to Thailand! Words can’t even describe how I felt/feel/will feel. Sorry for the dramatics, but I think this year abroad is bound be a life-changer for me.

However this brings me to a topic that I am not too happy about… the future status of this blog. No worries, this blog will still be up for those who need some recipe ideas. I don’t plan to ever take it down. It’s cringe-worthy, yet kinda cool to go back and read my posts from 5 years ago. (Yes, 5!) In an odd way, this blog has been a record of my college years. For those of you who have followed this blog, a big shout out and thank you to you!

Unfortunately, I’ll be unable to continue this blog for long in Thailand as I will not have a kitchen in my new home 😦 So, for the next few weeks, I’ll post recipes I’ve been meaning to. After that, it’s only if I have the opportunity to cook.

If you would like to know about my adventures in Thailand, feel free to follow my new blog, Teach. Eat. Travel. Repeat. I would love to share my journey with you!

For my last post, I wanted to write about this awesome new flour I’ve discovered- banana flour! It’s grain-free, paleo, and no,  it does not make your food taste banana-y.

Well, for this recipe it does because I used the flour to make banana chocolate muffins. So good. I can’t even…

Eat one for me while I’m away! 😉

Banana Flour Chocolate Banana Muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup banana flour

3 tbsp cacao powder 

2 tbsp honey

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup mashed banana

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 pinch stevia extract powder

1 egg

Optional- Chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients together in a food processor. Pour batter into a greased muffin tin. Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool before eating.

Banana Bars (Grain-Free)

I’ve been revisiting some of my old posts recently to see if I can make any minor improvements. This is a rather fun job for me as it involves a lot of taste testing! Plus, it’s a bit of a trip down memory lane (Hello, May 2012!). Good lord, how embarrassing some of my posts are…

While scrolling along, I came across my Carrot Bar recipe, which immediately made me start thinking of possible variations. The result? Banana bars!

Banana Bars

Ingredients: 

1 cup mashed banana (about 3 bananas)

3/4 cup plain yogurt

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup honey

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 tbsp flaxseed

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup coconut flour

Optional: 1/4 cup coconut flakes

Optional: 1/4 cup chocolate chips

Optional: 1/4 cup chopped almonds

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 13×9 baking dish.

Combine all ingredients (except chocolate chips and almonds) in a food processor and blend until a thick batter is formed. Stir in chocolate chips and almonds, if using. Spread batter in the baking dish and bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting and eating.

Butternut Squash Banana Pie (Paleo)

A new Thanksgiving dessert recipe! Well, kind of. I wouldn’t limit this to Thanksgiving. It’s too good to eat only once a year.

Fear not if you think butternut squash is weird to include in a dessert (I have my Butternut Squash Chocolate Pudding, Butternut Squash Chocolate Truffles, and Chocolate Almond Butternut Squash Cookies to prove you wrong, by the way) because the taste of it is not detectable! This tastes like a good ol’ banana and peanut/almond butter pie. The butternut squash acts as a filler to make extra volume. And who would complain about a more voluminous pie?

Not this girl here 😉

And as a Thanksgiving special, I’ve included a 2 in 1 recipe! Pie filling and a pie crust. I have long stopped using store-bought pie crust. This recipe is a lot healthier than what you can find in a store. Plus it takes only 3 seconds to make!     

Butternut Squash Banana Pie (Paleo)

Pie Crust Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup of raw nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts…whatever you fancy!)

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1.5 tbsp water

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place nuts and and coconut in food processor and pulse until fine. Add in rest of ingredients. Pulse, scraping sides if needed. Dump pie crust into a 9-in pie pan and press down and up against the sides. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Meanwhile…

Pie Filling:

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked and pureed butternut squash

1/4 cup nut butter of choice

3 ripe bananas

2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in food process and blend until smooth. Spread in a prepared pie crust and freeze for 3-4 hours. If freezing for a longer period of time, allow to thaw before eating. 

Coconut Banana Bread (Paleo)

This week, I came to the acceptance that I cannot bake for the life of me when using a box mix. I’ve actually known this for a while now- past experiences in making brownies while babysitting have never been successful. However, I’ve always been able to blame someone else’s oven for gooey, undercooked brownies. Until this week.

Thinking I could score some easy points for a club I’m in, I signed up for the club’s coming bake sale on campus and was assigned brownies. Except… I ran out of time and ingredients to make them homemade. Oops.

So, down to the 11th hour, I grabbed a gluten-free brownie box mix that I figured would do.

Yes, I know. Shame on me for using a box mix for a bake sale. Not really all that homemade when all you do is mix the powder with 2 ingredients. Not to mention all the artificial and sugary ingredients… but like I said, time crunch. Hey- at least I didn’t try playing off store-bought brownies as my own?

But, some higher-up power also thought I was taking the easy way out. So what do I get? Gooey brownies that wouldn’t hold form and were burnt at the bottom.

Hmmm, thought me. Must have been the box brand. But alas, no. Because box 2 turned out the same way, with the sides rock hard.

Grumbling that I should have just gone out and splurged on ingredients, I tried box 3. And a miracle happened. Passable brownies… an embarrassingly long time later.

Lesson learned? I’m sticking to baking from scratch from now on. For me, it’s actually less time consuming. Plus, homemade is 1000x better than box mixes.

Which is why I was happy to make my (from scratch) coconut banana bread today 🙂   

Coconut Banana Bread (Paleo)

Ingredients:

2 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup tapioca flour/starch

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/3 cup shredded coconut

3 tbsp coconut sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a bread pan with parchment paper.

Combine bananas, eggs, applesauce, oil, and vanilla in a food processor and blend all together.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, shredded coconut, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and power, and salt.

Add dry ingredients to the wet and stir/blend together until combined.

Transfer bread batter to the bread pan and place in the oven for 45 minutes.

Let cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from the pan.