Homemade Vegan Banana Nut Raisin Bread

    I was married 38 years ago and was given a wonderful Betty Crocker cookbook as a wedding present. I have used this book many times over the years. It has served me well.

    I loved the banana bread recipe it had but I can never leave anything without adding my personal touch to it, lol. So I added a bunch of spices to my recipe. The family loved it.

    Then 15 months ago, I became a plant based vegan. So my wonderful recipe got adapted again. It no longer resembles the original Betty Crocker  recipe, but is is still just as good as my adapted version. 

This just came out of my over and I added a smear of my vegan homemade butter while it was still hot.mmmm . Doesnt this make you want to lick the screen?

When creating vegan versions of recipes you eliminate eggs and have to find an appropriate substitute to bind everything and get a good rise. This is not always easy.  But as you can see this huge loaf has  a wonderful crown to it. For the egg substitution I used the very popular aquafaba. Aquafaba is simply the liquid form a can of beans or from your own cooked beans. I used chickpea liquid or navy beans. When I open a can I simply pour the liquid into an ice tray and freeze blocks and put them in a baggy for later use. This stuff works fantastic. No...you do not taste beans....not a hint! 

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Homemade Vegan Banana Bread

by May-1-2016

I adapted my Betty Crocker recipe many times in the past. Adding more spices etc. Today, since I have been vegan for about 15 months, I adapted my recipe to now make it vegan. It is a moist, almost fudgy bread loaded with raisins and nuts. So delicious when warm and lightly buttered.

Ingredients

• 3 c All Purpose flour or sub in 1 c.  oat flour
• 1/2 c granulated sugar
• 1/2 c packed brown sugar
• 3 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 TB apple sauce
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 TB apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 c nut milk of your choice
• 3 TB aquafaba (liquid from can of beans such as chickpeas or navy)
• 1 tsp orange zest
• 3 medium very ripe bananas
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp optional almond flavoring
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1 c raisins
• 1 c chopped walnuts or pecans

Instructions

Blend all but raisins and nuts. when batter is well combined, fold in nuts and raisins. Bake at 350◦ for 55-65 min for large pan, or 55-60 min for small pan. Insert knife into center to check if done. If it comes out clean its done, if you see some wet batter on knife bake for few minutes more and check again.

Details

Prep time: 15 hour Cook time: 60 hour Total time: 75 hour Yield: Makes 1 lg loaf 9x5x3 or two small loaves 8.5x4.5x2.5

HomeMade Non-dairy Yogurt

    As you may remember, I have been eating a plant based vegan diet. I can't say I have been craving cheese. I haven't. I have been wanting to try my hand at cheese making tho. My husband enjoys his grilled cheese and cheese on pizza. I found recipe online that someone shared and reduced size to make 3/4 to 1 cup.
1/4 cup cashews soaked overnight and drained.
1/4 cup water
1 probiotic capsule opened
3/4 tsp tapioca starch
After draining nuts. Put in blender with 1/4 cup water and tapioca starch. Blend on high till very smooth. Then place in a small crock in oven with a plate to loosely cover. NO HEAT just the light on. Leave overnight. Then place in refrigerator tightly covered for about 8-10 hrs. Recipe said to then drain in fridge for 4-8 hrs. But mine was thick enough without so I didn't. You can then add sweeteners or fruit of your choice. I tried it plain and thought it was slightly less tangy than greek yogurt, but very good. I also added some maple syrup and thoroughly enjoyed it. The original recipe called for two probiotic caps with 2 cups nuts and two cups water and 2 Tb tapioca starch. But I wanted to see if I liked it first. SO I made a  mini batch. Now off to finish my non-dairy mozzarella.

Homemade Non Dairy Butter and Newly Vegetarian/ Plant Based Vegan Wannabe

      For the past month I have been vegetarian, but hoping to eventually be more plant based vegan. I was a vegetarian in middle school  for two years as well. I am doing this for several reasons. One of them is for health. I truly believe with everything I have been reading that Plant Based is the way to go.
     With this new way of eating, it also involves learning a new way of cooking and preparing meals. I have actually made seitan, and seitan based bacon. Today I made homemade non dairy butter. We usually used Country crock and loved it. Recently with our diet change I bought Earth Balance Non Dairy Butter. It actually surprised me how good it was. I could not tell any difference between it and country crock except it was much harder. This butter recipe I got from Becky at Glue and Glitter. The link is HERE. She changed the recipe from HERE to suit her needs and pantry. Becky didnt use lecithin, or the xanthan gum. I already had liquid sunflower lecithin that I had recently ordered anticipating trying to make butter, however I had not gotten the xanthan gum yet. I was very anxious to give it a try and when I read she left it out and had no adverse affect. I decided to go for it. I used the measurements from Mattie's recipe for spreadable olive oil butter on Vegan Baking site HERE. Except I used vegetable oil for olive oil, 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar, and no xanthan gum. I love the taste. it taste just like earth balance and country crock but was more easily spreadable than earth balance. So easy and probably only cost pennies to make. I spread it on a slice of homemade bread and also had Vegetarian vegetable soup with homemade croutons on top. Delicious!

Decadent Caramel Apple Crisp

     I am going to start out with an admission. This is not my own recipe, but i did accidently modify it. I am sooo glad I did. It is originally a Butterscotch Apple Crisp, but when I went to the store, I didnt have the recipe with me, and thought I was to get caramel chips. However it was supposed to be butterscotch chips, but I cant imagine it would be near as good as the caramel. I am not much of a food photographer, so forgive me this crappy picture.

Here is where the original recipe can be found. Just remember to exchange the butterscotch chips with the caramel. That is, if you want to. :) Just give this recipe a try. It is seriously delicious. 

Fabulous, Moist Banana bread

         I have a recipe for banana bread that i have used for years. It makes a wonderfully dense,moist loaf. I recently tried another I found online and the whole family was very disappointed. It was lighter, more bread or cake like. Not my usual rich loaf. Then yesterday i found THIS recipe by Patricia at ButterYum blog. It looked very good. More like my loaves. I liked her idea of a crumbly topping. I have used this similar recipe for my french apple pie, but never thought of it for the banana bread. She also adds sour cream. My recipe called for milk. So I adapted my recipe to include those ingredients. It turned out fabulous. My original loaf was very good, but Patricia's  additions made it so much more delightful.  here is my new, one and only banana bread recipe.

                                                           Banana  Bread


1/2  cup milk
6 very ripe bananas
5 cups flour
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
7 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
10 tbs butter
2 eggs
2 and 1/2  tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground clove
1/2 tsp ground allspice
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3  cup sour cream
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts or almonds




Topping:
Courtesy of butterYum
6 tb melted butter
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients except nuts and raisins, for bread with a blender. then fold in nuts and raisins. Spray bottom of pans.Fill your loaf pans about 3/4 full. Mix crumbly topping, and sprinkle on top of batter. Bake loafs at 350 degrees for 65-70 minutes or till a knife inserted in center comes out clean. With this recipe and the size of my pans, I got 2 nice size loaves and 2 mini loaves.

I enjoyed mine warm smeared with a little country crock margarine.

Homemade Banana Cream Pie

   I feel like I have died and gone to heaven. I just ate my first piece of Banana Cream Pie made with real homemade filling.Not my traditional boxed pudding. It was fantastic. I found this recipe while searching for info on menu making, and landed on  Colleens Recipes. You can find her site and this recipe her  site HERE. I am sure I will be trying a lot more of her recipes.

Dave's Killer Bread

     You have got to check out this guys story, and try the recipe. I have never been into eating whole wheat bread before. To me it just seems a little heavy, and just not pleasant. However my husband eats it almost every morning. I seen this guys story on TV the other day, and looked up the recipe online. I occasionally make bread , so I was ready. I have only tried whole wheat one other time, and it was not good. This time, the bread raised fantastic, and even though I forgot about it while in the oven, and it got a little too brown on top, it turned out fantastic. Even my kids ate it. And they turn up their noses to brown bread ( 22 yo and up). I made it according to the recipe from the link below, except I did have to add a little extra water. I also brushed the top with thinned honey, and sprinkled on oats. Figured I would be a little creative :)
Here ya go:

Recipe can be found HERE.

A Day Of Excesses

       Today was really a bad day for me to have taken on so much. The fibromyalgia has been acting up for the past 4 days. I have been feeling exhausted most of the day. On top of that I havent been sleeping again. Last night I got about 4 hours. This morning started out fair. I did some cleaning, had my kitchen cleaned and scrubbed in the bathrooms some. Then I decided I wanted to do some baking. I have been jotting down some recipes from allrecipes.com/ . I love this place. You get reviews, and can adjust your recipes according to servings.I started out this morning with making ten 8 oz jars of Strawberry & White Peach Jam. My first jam in a long time. It was going to be just strawberry, then I thought, "What the Heck!, I have some white peaches I just bought, so I will add a couple of them". Aside from a few screw ups in steps, everything was going pretty well. That is until my daughter called wanting me to make a phone call for her while the strawberries were boiling. Let me tell you, It doesnt take long for this stuff (in a too full pot) to violently boil over. All over my nice clean electric stove. Plus the burner is hot , and it gets cooked on, actually burnt on in some spots. The SMOKE is a flying! One thing in my favor, is that it is a smooth top. Took me OVER an hour to get that nonsense scrubbed, and scraped off with a blade. Aside from that, the jam turned out wonderful!

  When I am feeling so fatigued, I dont think clearly, and frequently screw things up. get sidetracked etc...you know the drill. I should have quit there, I knew better, but I wanted a nice supper for my husband. I then burnt the green beans I had picked from the garden.....again. Then   I decided to concoct and make a couple of loaves of white bread. I read that by reducing the sugar, you can get a lighter, fluffier bread. So I put together a recipe that should have been fantastic. YEAAA, I said "should have been". It raised beautifully. Dough felt fantastic. But I baked it too long. Crust got a little too brown, and too thick. It still tasted great tho, especially with that fresh jam :)

        Then I decided to make a meatloaf to go with the bread.....Wait a minute...Didnt I just say "I should have stopped" a little ways back? I guess I missed that. here we go again, back to allrecipes.com. Did a little research on favorite recipes, and came up with THIS one. But I changed several things, and came up with my own recipe which I will post below. This was hands down, the  MOST best tasting meatloaf I have ever had, including Cracker Barrel's.

Well, maybe my luck was turning. After all, this  worked out well. Then i fixed Mashed Potatoes. Another well made dish. Kind of hard to screw up mashed potatoes. But believe me I have done it. I burn a LOT of things by forgetting they are on the stove cooking, or falling asleep on the couch.
By this time, I was too tired to make the salad I had planned. I had even picked the lettuce from the garden too. So I just sliced up my first Early Girl to eat plain. What a SPECIAL treat that was!

While I was working on these things, my daughter and her daughter decided to make cookies. They made sugar cookies, and chocolate chip.

Now my nice clean kitchen is destroyed! More work to do..........

Meatloaf

Loaf:

3/4 cup Packed Brown Sugar

1 TB Worcestershire sauce

3/4 cup ketchup

2.25 Ib Hamburger

1/2 cup of milk

3 eggs

2 and 1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 medium onion chopped fine

1/2 green pepper chopped fine

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1 and 3/4 cup cracker crumbs

Sauce:

1 cup ketchup

1 TB vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

1 TB mustard

1/2 cup brown sugar ( my husband liked it this sweet, but I think I would have preffered a little less)

Combine loaf ingredients in a bowl. Dont overwork. Place into loaf pan or other dish and form into a loaf.
Combine your sauce ingredients and pour over loaf. Bake at 350° for about an hour and 10 minutes.Depending on your oven, you might want to check it in an hour.

                                                                White Bread
1 cup of warm water
1/3 cup of sugar
2 packs of yeast
1 and 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup of warm milk
1/3 cup butter or vegetable oil
1 egg lightly beaten
6 cups flour ( I used unbleached King Arthur)

Mix together first 4 ingredients and set aside to allow yeast to activate. Then add the rest of the liquid ingredients. Measure in the flour, reserving the last cup to add in increments . Knead by hand for about 10 minutes, or about 5 minutes by electric mixer with dough hook, then finish by hand. (just my preference). Could be all done on machine. Pour small amount of oil in bowl, and grease bowl, then turn dough into bowl, greasing all of dough. Cover with towel, and let rise in warm area for about an hour or until doubled. then pan out into 2 loaves and allow to raise again till doubled. About 45 minutes. bake at 350° for about 25 minutes or until sounds hollow when tapped.

                                          Strawberry & White Peach Jam
4 cups mashed strawberries ( also put mine thru a blender so there were no large chunks)
1 cup mashed white peaches (blended with strawberries)
4 TB lemon juice
1 box sure jell pectin
7 cups of sugar
I just followed the directions that come in your Sure Jell box for cooking. Pour into jars, and seal by hot water bath.

Pepperoni Rolls

My daughter has been wanting some homemade pepperoni rolls for supper for awhile now, but it always seemed I never had enough of the supplies. Well , this time I was prepared. I made a batch of 2 dozen large rolls. The bread recipe is a favorite I have used for a long time. I am not sure where I got it from. It is Amish White Bread. Its makes very nice ,light fluffy bread.
Here is the dough at the end of the first raising:

I am not used to this blogging thing, so almost forgot to take a picture of them before they were all devoured. Here is a picture of two I have left:

They were stuffed with loads of pepperoni, and hot pepper cheese. You can see one stick of pepperoni falling out. Here is the recipe:
                                                  ___________________
                                       Amish White Bread
2 cups of warm water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 pks active dry yeast
1 and 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
5 to 6 cups of flour


First proof the yeast by mixing the yeast,warm water, and sugar and let set a few minutes to let mixture foam up. The add the remaining ingredients and mix. Start with 5 cups of flour, then add remaining cup as needed to prevent it from being sticky. I like to use my stand mixer to knead, but it can also be done by hand. If kneading by hand, do so for about 10 minutes, slightly less by mixer. Then oil dough, cover and set in warm place to raise till doubled.Then pan out into desired shape (for loafs or rolls) and let raise again. Then bake at 350° for about 25 minutes.