I had some over ripe bananas so decided needed to make some banana bread.   After the success of the Anzac biscuits from The Healthy Chef website I decided to give the banana bread recipe a try, you can find the recipe here.   I ground my own almond meal and flaxseed in the Thermomix and set aside.   You then whip up the rest of the ingredients like a smoothie on speed 5-6 for 20 seconds.   I then added the almond meal and ground linseed and mixed for another 20 seconds on speed 5-6.   The mixture pours into the loaf pan like a batter.   I sprinkled the top with walnuts, cinnamon and some organic raw sugar before baking for about 60 minutes on 160 degrees celsius.   I did oil and flour the pan but had some trouble getting it out and some of the base stuck to the bottom, think maybe needed to cool a bit more before removing from the pan.    Served it with ricotta, blueberries and drizzle of organic maple syrup, made a delicious brunch with coffee, I think my cat Peppa agreed!

Autumn Coles magazine also had a section on gluten free Easter recipes and decided to give this gluten free brownie a try as but different as uses ground up gluten free rice cakes as the base.

120g thick gluten free rice cakes
100g macadamias chopped
125g butter chopped
100g Green & Blacks 70% dark chocolate chopped
1/2 cup pure icing sugar (plus extra for dusting)
1/2 cup cacao sifted
2 free range eggs lightly beaten
3/4 cup milk
fresh raspberries & cream to serve

Preheat oven to 150 degrees celsius and grease and line 20cm square cake pan.

Place rice cakes in TM and grind on speed 9 for 1 minute or until fine crumbs, transfer to a bowl.

Chop macadamias in the TM and add to the bowl, stir to combine.

Place butter, chocolate, icing sugar and cacao in a saucepan and stir on low heat until melted and smooth.

Add to rice mixture and mix to combine.

Add eggs and milk and mix well.

Put into cake pan and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake for 15 minutes or until just set, cool in the pan.

Dust with icing sugar and slice into fingers.   Serve with raspberries and either cream or ice cream.

One of the best blogs for gluten free and Thermomix is Quirky Cooking.   Jo is amazing at creating tasty and healthy recipes and I have tried many but this latest one just might be my new favourite.   We had some salmon for Good Friday and wanted to do something different, Aubrey wanted a curry, so best of both worlds with this recipe.   We did not have any quinoa and so used basmati rice instead which came out like coconut steamed rice.   Check out the recipe and Quirky cooking blog here.

I have tried making gluten free pastry before for a quiche and lets say it was not very edible, just at the filling!   So was with some doubt that decided to give this chickpea crust a go as demonstrated (and taste tested!) by Rose at the Gluten Free Expo.   I could not find dal flour so ground down half a cup of green lentils (from the soup aisle!) and half a cup of brown rice to flour in the Thermomix.   I transferred this to a bowl and then processed a can of drained chickpeas to a paste in the Thermomix and then added to the flour mix with a pinch of salt.   Once this was mixed well together I added a little vegetable oil until becomes the consistency of play dough.   You then press this into a quiche tin (with the removable base) and up the sides to form a crust, no need to blind bake it.   I then made the quiche filling with four eggs and 1 cup of milk mixed together.   Then it is just a case of adding any left over ingredients or things have on hand.   The first quiche I made was a cheese, bacon and onion quiche with fetta cheese and sprinkled with tasty cheddar on top.   This weekend I made a spinach, mushroom, sun dried tomato and sunflower seed quiche with goat cheese fetta.   Both tasted delicious and the crust if able to be sliced and comes out of the quiche tin easily and holds together yet it is easy to cut and eat, not like some of my previous attempts as gluten pastry or crusts which you could not cut or chew!

Now I have the hang of the muffin mix consistency required can make many variations.   On the weekend I tried making savoury muffins with sun dried tomato, fetta, pesto and sunflower seeds.   They are delicious warmed up with light cream cheese for lunch and would be lovely with pumpkin soup.

I then used the muffin mix to make a dark choc and orange loaf.    I substituted the 1/4 cup of sugar with Natvia from my WBC gift pack and boiled an orange and blended it in the Thermomix to add to the batter.   I used dark choc chips in the centre which make a chocolate sauce in the centre of the loaf which comes out more like a pudding and is delicious warmed up with vanilla bean ice cream.