Banana Bread

Feb 22nd
bananab6

Happy Banana Bread Day!

This is most definitely an American thing. I’ve never before heard of banana bread day… but I’m all for embracing the festivities!

I decided to make mine primal. That means no wheat flour or sugar.

6 months to go until my wedding, and I need to get myself sorted! I’ve kinda set myself the challenge of keeping 100% primal for a whole month. I’ll see how that goes, with the intention of extending it out to the next 6 months and beyond.

Superficially, I want to look good great in my wedding dress but, ultimately, I want to live a healthier lifestyle. This includes eating right and getting the correct exercise.

I know from personal experience that if I try jumping straight into anything that forces a massive lifestyle change too abruptly, I fail. So I’m not going to force myself to get into an exercise regime right away.

I’ve been eating the majority of my meals primal for quite some time now, although not being 100% strict. Indulging in too many cheat meals… which turn into cheat days by just giving in to temptations around the house. It’s one of my downfalls and I am determined to resist! Still living at home with the folks and not being able to control what’s in the kitchen cupboards can be frustrating and often difficult, but I have no excuses anymore. It’s all about willpower and a genuine desire to do this right!

So my plan for the next 4 weeks (I started Monday) is to get my diet in order. Get myself into good eating habits, eating clean, and slowly working-in Mark Sisson’s recommended exercise.

A whole day of shopping counts as low level aerobic activity… right?!

Enough about me – more about the food!

I looked through a number of paleo and primal friendly banana bread recipes. I decided after much deliberation, that the recipe I liked the sound of best, was the one posted on Mark’s Daily Apple.

[This also could have had something to do with me having all the ingredients to hand...]

It’s a simple recipe, with a small list of ingredients. I love the idea of using few ingredients. To me it makes the food less complicated and for some reason makes me think it’s healthier. The simpler the better right?

I found the recipe here.

Primal Banana Bread

Makes: 1 Loaf    Time: 40mins

Ingredients:
2 cups almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch sea salt
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup butter – melted
2 eggs
2 well ripened bananas (the riper they are the sweeter they are)

  • Preheat oven to 180 C or 350F
  • combine the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Almond flour, baking powder, sea salt and chopped walnuts
  • break eggs into another bowl, and lightly whisk until the eggs are completely broken up.
  • mash the bananas
  • add the bananas and melted butter to the egg mix
  • pour the egg mix into the dry ingredients, and gently fold until the mix evenly comes together
  • transfer into a lightly buttered loaf tin
  • bake for around 30mins (check after 25mins)

For come reason my dad thought it would be a great idea to buy a huge amount of walnuts the other day… so I threw in a whole cup of chopped walnuts, instead of the 3/4 cups suggested in the original recipe.

I think it made for a more textured and wholesome bread.

Now, I made this loaf last night… and the temptation to immediately devour it was incredibly difficult to resist. However I had to wait – because photographing this baby cannot be done at night. And so it wasn’t until this morning that I was able to slice into it.

It was well worth the wait!

It’s been a while since I’ve eaten banana bread of any sort but – if I remember correctly – this tastes practically  identical to your ‘normal‘ banana bread. Pretty cool when this is loaded with healthy nuts, fruit and good fat, instead of being laden with gluten, sugar and other nasty stuff.

Make yours, let it cool for a while, and then cut yourself a slab slice, spread some butter (or a primal friendly nut butter)onto the warm tasty banana bread, and enjoy – with a cup of tea or coffee. Maybe have it as part of a meal… perfect with some scrambled eggs.

Mo enjoyed his slice with melted chocolate (90% cocoa solids) poured over the top. Made me regret not throwing chocolate chips into the mix, or maybe a dash of cinnamon… Damn!

This banana bread is YUM! It’s also quite filling – and I like this fact. Especially as I found however tempted I was to cut myself a second slice, that I just didn’t have the room for it!

Now that I’m trying to keep things 100% primal, I’m quite keen on having healthful treats around, just in case I feel the need for something sweet or indulgent. But obviously not too many because any treats, healthy or not, should not be over-eaten.