Banana ‘Sunshine’ Muffins

At the weekend I ended up with a big bunch of ripe banana’s. As I had eaten the last of my wonderful banana coconut bread I decided I wanted to make some form of baked banana goodness to keep in the freezer for when the fancy takes me. I wanted to make something healthy and hearty enough that it could be eaten for breakfast, but still sweet and tasty for afternoon snacks and even dessert:

Banana ‘Sunshine’ Muffins (vegan, makes 12 muffins)

• 1 cup of spelt flour
• 1 cup of brown rice flour
• 1/4 cup of non dairy milk plus 1/2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
• 2 mashed bananas
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup of zylitol or natural caster sugar
• 1/3 cup of rapeseed / coconut oil
• 2 tbsp of sunflower seeds
• 10 dried apricots, chopped (I used dark un sulphured apricots)

Pre heat the oven to 170c. Mix together the non dairy milk and vinegar and allow to sit for a few minutes. In a large bowl combine the bananas, sugar and oil. Add the flour and baking powder followed by the milk / vinegar mix and combine well. Stir in the sunflower seeds and apricots. Spoon into muffin cases – these don’t rise that much so fill them close to the top for big muffins (you will probably only get 10 out of the mix). Bake in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes until lightly golden:

These are very dense, hearty muffins filled with banana flavour, sweetness from the apricots and a slight nuttiness from the sunflower seeds. I enjoyed one crumbled on top of a simple green smoothie for breakfast yesterday and it was divine!

I actually went for a very basic green smoothie (by my standards at least!) which included spinach, frozen banana, vanilla hemp protein powder, rice milk, maca, mesquite, spirulina, xanthan and guar gums. As well as the muffin on top I added some freeze dried berries and granola. It was lovely to enjoy a simple banana / spinach green smoothie for a change!

Last night I finally got round to trying out a cheesy tofu sauce. I blended some silken tofu and mixed with 2 tbsp of nutritional yeast, 1 tsp of vegetable bouillon powder and about 1/4 cup of hot water then warmed through on a low heat. I had it as a sauce for spelt pasta, spiralised courgette and steamed asparagus then added a giant serving of steamed purple sprouting broccoli on the side:

This sauce is fantastic! So creamy and cheesy, perfect filling comfort food. In fact its so good I actually think James would eat this!

Dessert was a couple of frozen chocolate avocado cups:

Perfect as always :-)

This morning I had a craving for muesli so I had some of my home mix with chopped strawberries and rice milk:

Erm, I really don’t do small bowls of muesli do I?

Lunch was some Clearspring soya ramen noodles with some leftover spiralised courgette from last night plus lots of veggies – carrots, green pepper and sugar snaps:

I also had some melon and more strawberries – still in love with fresh fruits!

I made a really quick dinner tonight using up some of my Roasted Vegetable Curry from the freezer with millet and steamed greens with shoyu and mixed seeds:

The curry was fantastic again, I love how the flavours improve when it has been frozen and the texture of the aubergine was wonderful. I couldn’t resist more chocolate for dessert so I had some Fruit Fantasy Conscious raw chocolate:

This contains dried dates and figs and was just gorgeous as usual!

Exercise over the last couple of days has been great, I did Yoga for Runners yesterday morning and Body Pump last night (I think I’m almost ready to increase my weights!) and this morning I was at the gym for another tough sweaty 30 minutes of speed work on the treadmill followed by 30 minutes of intervals on the gym equipment plus my abs and core.

I realised after I made those muffins that I almost never just eat a muffin on its own, I love them with fruit and tofu yoghurt or crumbled into smoothies. A big spoonful of nut butter on top never goes a miss either! What’s your favourite way to eat muffins?