Banana Smoothie Milkshakes and MUSIC!

Yesterday was hot. And I mean HOT. It was at least 32°c and I was suffering to the point of intense grumpiness. Before I thought of taking a cool shower outside (which fixed my mood problem), I decided to make frozen smoothies.

It was quick and easy to put them together, because clever girl that I am, I had already frozen a bunch of bananas a few days before.

Before I get to the recipe, here's some back-story about the 'nanas:

Francois and I have REALLY been enjoying banana smoothies for the last little while. So much so, that we keep running out of bananas. I remembered reading about how well bananas freeze, so when we went to the shop on Monday, I bought eleven kilograms of almost-ripe narnars. Yes. Eleven.

This is what I haven't dealt with yet.

When we got home, I chopped up all of the mostly ripe ones and popped them in the freezer. I've been chopping some every day, as they ripen. All of this chopping resulted in a very full container of banana bits.

I've used a lot already, this was full to the brim!

Today, I realised that there's no way that all of the banana will fit in the containers that I have, so I also froze a few whole bananas on a tray.

I'll probably dip those in chocolate and freeze them for lollipop-like treats.

Anyway, the chopped, frozen banana slices were used to make scrummy-liscious fruitshake smoothies!

Ingredients:

• 3 Chopped frozen bananas 
• 4 tablespoons rolled oats 
• 1 heaped tablespoon honey 
• 3 big tablespoons plain yoghurt 
• ½ cup milk 
• 2 shakes of cinnamon 

Method:

1. Put oats, cinnamon, milk and yoghurt into a blender. 
2. Blend until the oats become fairly fine. This shouldn't take more than a few seconds. 
3. Add the honey and blend again. 
4. Add the banana bits, half a banana at a time, blending before adding more. If you have a powerful blender, you can just chuck it all in at once. 
5. Blend until smooth. Add more milk if it's too thick for your taste. (I like it thick, I eat it with a spoon!) 
6. Pour into glasses. This recipe is for two big smoothies, but you can adjust it quite easily to stretch it, if you like. 

I don't have a picture of them, but I'll try to remember to take one tomorrow when I make more. :P


In other news: I've started playing piano again!

I used to play when I was in primary school. That's a while ago, as I'm sure you can imagine, so my skills are rather lacking at the moment.

Francois brought my keyboard downstairs a few days ago after our landlord came to fetch his piano. Then Francois had a song stuck in his head from The Legend of Zelda (Saria's Song, to be specific) and he tried to work it out on the keyboard...

Monkey see, monkey do, and now I'm playing every day, working out tunes that play in my head, practicing scales and reminding myself of how to read sheet music.

It's bloody fun!

We've reorganized the furniture a bit so that I feel comfortable at my keyboard, and Francois has a better layout for playing games at his PC as a pleasant extra result.

This is my spot!

Now I don't play piano RIGHT next to the toilet! Yay!

And for any of you who may be interested to know, this is my keyboard:

It's a Technics KN 1200, just in case you can't read what's in the photo.

Anyway, that's it from me, for today.

Oh! I want to try to make banana ice-cream. But I need a stronger blender to do that. I think it'd be cool to make and sell dairy-free ice-cream to the locals.

Oh oh! And Carrie the Limping Lion gets released on Monday! How exciting! :D

Oh and one more thing. I've turned over a new leaf. My house is neat and tidy almost all the time, and I do dishes just about every day. It's pleasant to be home! Well. Downstairs, anyway. I still need to tackle upstairs...

Okay. Bye now!

My Gluten-Free Chocolate Mug Cakes

My body hates wheat, and wheat hates my body. They have a bit of a war going on, they do. Quite a while ago, I realised that the reason for my constant discomfort and bloating was that particularly common grain. So for the most part, I've avoided the soft powdery embrace of any goodie or savoury treat that contains flour.

Since my denouncing of the substance, I've been tempted to eat wheaty things a few times, but each time have regretted it thoroughly. As a result, I've started experimenting with flour-free baking alternatives. (Gluten free flours are expensive!!)

Here's the recipe that I use to create two flour-free chocolate and banana mug cakes:

I was late with the camera. Sorry!

Ingredients:

• Bananas - 2
• Egg - 1
• Cocoa - 2 heaped teaspoons
• Sugar - 4 teaspoons
• Salt - 1/4 teaspoon
• Baking Powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Method:

1. If you have a blender, break the bananas up a bit and pop them into the jug. If not, pop them into a small mixing bowl, and proceed to mash them up as well as you can with a fork. I say 'as well as you can,' but actually, don't worry about making it too smooth. A few lumpy banana bits in the cake are not bad at all.
2. Add all of the dry ingredients, and then the egg. (If you add the dry ingredients after the egg, they cause quite a bit of powder to puff up into your face when you start mixing things up.)
3. Mix things up. If you're using a blender, this should take no time at all. You want the texture to be smooth, and the dry ingredients thoroughly and evenly combined with the wet. Obviously. That's what mixing is for. If you're mixing by hand, just use that fork again to mash things in nicely with the banana. 
4. Pour the batter into two mugs. There's no need to line the mugs with butter or anything, because banana isn't as sticky as flour. The mugs are usually pretty easy to wash if you rinse them straight after eating the cake, or if you leave it to soak for a short while. 
5. Microwave each cake separately for about one minute and twenty seconds. You can experiment with the perfect time for your microwave, just remember that less time will make a more gooey, moist cake, and more time will just allow the cake to dry out a bit more. You don't need to worry too much about overcooking it, because the banana stays very moist regardless. 
6. Eat the resulting deliciousness as soon as it's ready. Hot gooey mug cakes are the best puddings, in my opinion. 

Well, enjoy the yummy gluten- and flour-free pudding! Say thank you for the recipe and share it with other people, if you like. ;) Bye!