Oat Bars

When you have brown banana's in your kitchen screaming Banana Bread at you BUT you want something a little different...
Depending on how many of these brown little sweeties you have staring at you, you actually have SO many fun options.  Have you tried Banana nice cream ...seriously....seriously....it is like soft serve but not crappy and SOOOOO easy to make. OR you could make oat bars.
These are simple and just the right amount of sweet. All natural ingredients you can feel good about.  Perfect for afternoon tea time or pack in your lunch basket for carb energy in your day.  Great thing is once you realize you have those ripe banana's staring at you, you really have almost all the ingredients.

4 1/2 Cups Oats
2 Ripe Banana's
6 TBSP Maple Syrup
6 TBSP Tahini (you can use any nut butter here)
4 TBSP Coconut Oil, plus extra for greasing if you don't have parchment paper to line your bake tray

Preheat the oven 400F

Put your Oats into a large mixing bowl set aside
In a small bowl mash your banana's
In a small sauce pan add your maple syrup, your nut butter, and coconut oil.  Heat on medium heat stirring till smooth.  Add your mashed banana and allow to simmer until it becomes warm and liquid and smooooth.
Pour the smooth sweet banana, syrup, nut butterness onto your oats. Stir well until all your oats are covered.
Grease your baking sheet with coconut oil or line with parchment paper.  I love parch paper makes for such an easy clean up plus it makes it much easier to chop into bars from a cutting board rather than out of the pan.
Transfer your batter onto the baking sheet.  Press down firmly with a spatula so that it is even and compact.
Bake for 20 minutes until the top becomes golden.
Cool completely before chopping into bars.

Enjoy
XO
Asia Girl

Grape Nuts Muffins

I made these while looking for a way to incorporate more fiber into my diet.  I like baked goods but am extra picky since I want my food to be as natural and healthy as possible.
These muffito's are made with whole ingredients.  The grape nuts are a store bought item... but for the added benefits of the fiber I think it is a good add.

Ingredients

1 cup Grape-nuts

1/2 cup Rolled oats

1 1/4 c Almond milk

1 Flax Egg

1/2 cup Applesauce

1/4 cup Maple Syrup

2 TBS melted Coconut Oil

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1 TBS Baking Powder

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Salt

1 cup Blueberries

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400.

2. Make Flax Egg: Mix 1 TBSP ground flax with 2.5 TBSP water. Let sit 3 min's.

3. Combine Almond Milk, Grape-nuts, and Oats. Let sit 3 min.

4. Mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into cereal mix.

5. Add Maple Syrup and melted Coconut oil to your Flax Egg.

5. Stir wet mixture into flour mix. Stir until combined. Fold in the berries.

6. Line muffin tins with *silicone liners or grease with coconut oil and fill 2/3 full with batter. 

7. Bake 20 min. Cool 5 min in pan, then on wire rack.

* I have used paper liners for this recipe and results were not great.  Ended up eating a bit of paper with each muffin as they STICK to the paper like glue! Silicone liners = best results :)

Enjoy! 

XO 

Ashie Girl 

Asia Eggplant Dip

If you love Baba Ghanoush you might now want to hear that most store bought prepared Baba can be loaded with fat and calories. Now you know I’m not afraid to eat fat (hello nut butter!) but the kind of fat you will find in these dips doesn't typically land in the 'good fat' category. Also keeping it more veg and less fat gives makes for a perfect snack that you don’t have to feel guilty about.  This can easily be used as a dressing for salad or mixed with rice and beans adding something a little extra for taste as well as bumping up nutrition.

Ingredients

• 1 large eggplant
• coconut oil 
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/4 tsp dried cumin (optional)
• 1 tsp of Tahini 
• Lemon juice
• water
• Pepper to taste
  
  
  
  
  

To start you need to roast your eggplant. THis is pretty simple.  Heat oven to 400.  Cut your eggplant length wise.  Rub the outer skin with coconut oil.  Cut side down roast in oven for 20 minutes.  

Once cooled add your eggplant and remaining ingredients to your blender.  Wiz it up. Voila.  You have a yummy dip for veggies or mix with rice or quinoa.  

ENjoy!

xo

Ashie Girl 

Roated Kabucha squash Taco's with purple cabbage & quick Guac

Mini Yam Bread

YOu know when you are going low carb and you NEED just a little something.  This was my solution today.  My day was crazy town from start to finish.  This tasted sorta like pumpkin pie but in a loaf.  I had a little chunk with Almond butter on it with my tea and it fixed me right up.  The rest is sliced up and in the freezer until the next low hits.  Being prepared with healthy go to snacks is crucial to success.  I still think this recipe could use some work since it reeaaallly didn't actually rise like bread.  But I found it valuable today so I wanted to post it anyways.  Also I used my blender to puree the yam then added all the other ingredients to the blender.  At this point it wasn't really blender worthy so I used my long spatula to incorporate the rest.

prep tins with coconut oil - pre heat oven to 350 degrees

Ingredients:

-200 grams of cooked Yam (about 1 medium sized Yam)
-1 1/4 Cup Almond Milk (un sweetened)
-1 3/4 Cup Rice Flour
-1 tsp Cinnamon
-1 ts Baking powder

Combine ingredients.  Add to tins.  Bake about 1 hour.  Cool.  Slice. Enjoy.
Xo Ashie Girl

Hippy Muffin's for back to school

These muffins are inspired by one of my fav bloggers Sarah Britton of 'My New Roots'. These freeze beautifully. Keep half out for your fam jam to munch on, and once cooled, put the others in a thick plastic bag in the freezer. Take some out in the morning, put one in your kids lunch AND DONT FORGET put one (or two) in your bag for an afternoon snack at work. You will thank yourself for being so prepared and healthy!

Ingredients

-1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
-1/3 cup olive oil
-1/3 cup maple syrup
-2 Tbs. Tahini
-Grated zest of 1 organic, un-waxed orange
-2 cups whole grain flour (spelt, kamut, or whole wheat)
-1 cup rolled oats
-1 tsp. baking powder
-1 tsp. baking soda
-1/2 tsp. sea salt
-1 cup fresh or frozen berries.
-pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Prep a 12 Cup muffin tin.

2. Put the orange juice, oil, syrup, tahini, and orange zest into a medium bowl and whisk until well combined.
3. Mix the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl until well combined. Add the orange juice mixture and combine, using as few strokes as possible so you do not over mix the batter. Fold in the blueberries.
4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pans, filling each approximately 3/4 full. Sprinkle with seeds. 

Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean (about 20-25 minutes).

Gingerbread

This recipe is inspired by a rainy day.  It's halloween and it doesn't feel at all like it!  Our energies lately have been all about work for myself and especially Grego. For Boden his many activities and new passions.  We even skipped carving a pumpkin. Boden has declared himself too old to trick or treat...he IS only 11 but as he looks down at me towering my height my inches now I support his choice.  Baking something with pumpkin, molasses, and pumpkin pie spice could not be missed.  

This recipe was inspired by Oh She glows.  I love cruising all my fav blogs for new recipes but more often than not it is Angela's recipes that get me making a mess in my kitchen.  Our house smells like fall and that at least feels a bit like halloween.

This recipe is vegan and soy free. Angela's recipe calls for pumpkin puree but since my mind is still foggy from a nasty cold I have been fighting I found myself half way deep into the recipe until I remembered the important ingredient I needed  CRAP.... and then quickly I improvised.  Enter a nice big orange Yam.  The recipe also calls for pumpkin pie spice of which I did not have in my spice cupboard but luckily Angela provides a quick recipe for this as well... I  have also amended this since I have discovered I REALLy don't care for nutmeg OR cloves.  But without these two it still is an outstanding pumpkin spice if I don't say so myself.

Pumpkin Pie Spice:

-4 tsp cinnamon

-2 tsp ground ginger

-1 tsp ground allspice

Angela's recipe also calls for:

-1 tsp grated nutmeg

-1/2 tsp ground cloves

...if you are into those sorts of things (gag)

Gingerbread!

1 TBSP Chia seeds

3 TBSP water

1 Cup cooked Yam

1/3 Cup melted coconut oil

3 TBSP pure maple syrup

1/2 Cup packed brown sugar

1/4 Cup blackstrap molasses

1 2/3 Cup all purpose flour

1 TBSP pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 Cup raw pumpkin seeds

Method:

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees

prep bread pan with parchment paper OR prep muffin tins

In a small bowl mix together chia seeds and water and let sit for maybe 3 mins.

In your blender carafe, add all wet ingredients.  Dont forget to add your chia blob (this is your egg sub and it works like a dream  ALSO adds nutrition to your recipe :)
Blend till combined and smooth.

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Add wet ingredients from blender.  Mix just till combined. Once batter is in your loaf pan or in muffin tins sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.  

Cooking time for muffins is 22 mins.  For a loaf give it about 50 mins. 

Happy Halloween Y'all!  

xoxo Ashie girl