The most versatile banana "bread" ever

I have been making this bread for years now, as evidenced by the ratty old copy of the recipe. I pretty much know it by heart and have adapted it to suit my needs. I have recently been making it just about once a week as muffins to eat at breakfast. Breakfast for me is usually eaten on the run while I'm feeding kids, getting kids dressed, packed for school, driven to school. You get the picture. I'm lucky if the coffee in my cup is still warm when I finally get to it. This bread also freezes extremely well. And I've never given it as a gift and had someone not say they loved it.

I say it's versatile because as I was making it with my daughter this morning I realized that it is gluten, soy, and dairy free. You could very easily make it egg free too. This is also easy to make with frozen bananas. When your bananas start looking gnarly throw them in the freezer and then defrost them on the counter for a couple hours when you want bread. It does change the color and flavor a bit, but still good. Also, the base recipe is great on it's own, but it's even better if you add chocolate chips. Or, in the fall I like to add cinnamon and apples. I've also done it with a crumble topping. Won't do that again any time soon, it was too good and our house ate it in one day!

So here's the base recipe:

3 bananas (I usually use 2, but if you use frozen bananas use 3)
1 cup sugar (you can use 1/2 cup agave here too)
1 egg, or egg substitute
1 1/2 cup flour (I use Gluten Free Pantry all-purpose)
1/4 cup applesauce
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

You can also add:
1 cup mini chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life) OR
1/2 tbsp cinnamon and 1 apple chopped

Mix it all together until moist. If your bananas are frozen you can just use a spoon, otherwise you'll want an electric mixer. Pour into a greased bread pan or muffins tins. For muffins bake at 350 for 20 minutes. For bread, 350 for 50-60 minutes.

Two soy free product raves.

Being newly soy free has taken a little getting used to. But it has had it's benefits. I have been struggling to get back down to "fighting weight" since Kitten was born. I eliminated soy and the weight seems to be rolling off. Imagine that. The most difficult challenge has been finding chocolate without soy. I am a chocoholic of the purest sense. My day doesn't feel complete without a little taste. But alas, most chocolate has soy lecithin in it as an emulsifier rather than cocoa butter because cocoa butter is expensive. Even so called organic chocolate has soy in it. Surprised? I was too. But I found two products that have changed all that.

The first is Theo chocolate bars. I found them at Whole Foods, but you can also buy in bulk from Amazon or their own website. They're a really cool company according to their website. And they are the only chocolate bar on the market (that I've found anyway) that uses cocoa butter. And you can taste the difference, in a good way.

The second discovery was Enjoy Life chocolate chips. I do a lot of home baking because of our gluten allergies and make banana chip muffins weekly as a quick breakfast. But all chocolate chips have soy. Except for Enjoy Life. These are actually gluten, dairy, soy, nut free. And still taste great because there are no fillers. I also found these at Whole Foods, but you can also get them in bulk from Amazon.

I'm thinking about doing more shopping for our allergen free products from Amazon for a little bit of savings and convenience, but right now we don't have the storage for it all. Maybe in our new house.

More?! Or less as the case may be.

I went back to the allergist after a two year hiatus and found that I'm now also allergic to: soy, almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, and tomatoes. At first I was optimistic. After all, I've been down this road before. My suspicion over the nut allergy is what triggered the visit in the first place. But soy? I had recently switched to soy milk because of some dairy intolerance, and I liked it. Soy is in everything! And so are tomatoes!

I've done some research and discovered that the tomato thing is probably related to oral allergy syndrome and that I can probably tolerate them cooked. I will hold off on testing that theory until my symptoms clear up. I also went to Whole Foods and got some soy free chocolate. I have a chocolate problem. But at least now I don't have a chocolate has soy problem.

And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

Whenever I tell people that I'm gluten free I usually get the same questions:

1) What can't you eat? (answer: wheat, rye, barley, and mass produced oats)
2) Has it been hard? (answer: yes and no. There is definitely a high learning curve and there have been ups and downs but my whole family has had noticeable changes to their health so I'm in for the long haul.)
3) And most important: How did you find out you had an allergy? This answer takes a longer explanation.

I have had spring seasonal allergies since I was in high school. Every year they seem to get worse, and every year I go back to the doctor and get another prescription that after awhile no longer works. Back in September, at the urging of my primary doctor, I went to an allergist to get retested. Turned out, I was still allergic to the same things, and now also cats. I left the appointment with a handful of new prescriptions, samples, and a comment the allergist said sticking in my head. He said that there was a good chance I would have to go on Prednisone (AKA a gawd-awful steroid with horrible side effects) to get through the allergy season. That didn't really seem like a good idea to me. So...I looked into a second opinion.

I have many friends (including my sister in-law) who've had good experience with naturopaths. I asked around and found the CT Center for Health and Dr. Sam. I made a call and scheduled an appointment. In the meantime, I felt like shit and realized that all my toenails were starting to fall off. Yup, you heard right. Toenails.falling.off. Gross. When I first met with Dr. Sam I filled out the new patient questionnaire like a good doobie and including all my crazy symptoms that no one had ever resolved before. Eczema, allergies, foot fungus, asthma, just to name a few. Dr. Sam met me and I immediately felt as ease. She was relaxed and laid back like me, she was straightforward, like me. And then, she looked at my symptoms and said "Has anyone ever told you you might have a gluten allergy?" Huh? I replied with a simple no, this woman is crazy I thought, I'm the bread and pasta queen, I never get sick off that stuff. But then she explained that seasonal allergies, asthma, and eczema are all linked (which I knew) and that they are often symptoms of a gluten allergy rather than actual stand alone medical problems (which I didn't know). She also told me I probably had a yeast allergy which was related to the foot fungus. Lastly, she said that as standard operating procedure she tested for a Vitamin D deficiency because most people have one. I left the appointment with a list of blood tests I needed to take and the desire to learn as much as I could before my follow-up appointment.

I headed to the library and got a great book (the title of which now escapes me) that pretty much solidified my opinion that not only did I have this, but my daughter, and most likely my husband did too. Ironically I also think that my grandmother had this too. She spend YEARS trying to get odd symptoms diagnosed. I tried to get Honey to read the book but he said no quite flatly. Instead, I stopped feeding Lovey pasta and bread and miraculously her eczema cleared up pretty spontaneously. Like gone. In a week. That was pretty telling.

So by the time I went back to Dr. Sam I pretty much knew that I had it. Dr. Sam was able to confirm, the blood tests results were pretty staggering. I also had a pretty extreme Vitamin D defiency. I left the appointment armed with prescriptions for vitamins, a lab sheet for follow-up blood work, and an unrelenting craving for a chocolate chip cookie.

The craving has lasted. But the rest of my symptoms? Gone. I was drug free during allergy season for the first time in 15 years! I had more energy, my eczema cleared up, my toenails grew back, I was less irritable. Who would have know? Honey decided to jump on the gluten free bandwagon too and he also felt better. He struggled with adult acne for years and it never resolved. I kept telling him it was something he was eating. Well guess what? It was. Gluten. No gluten for Honey = no acne for Honey. It's as simple as that.

I won't say there aren't times when I'm pissed off I have to be gluten free. It's more expensive, it's inconvenient, not many people understand gluten. I also was quite angry for awhile that I had questioned my health for so long and seen so many specialists and there was never an answer. I wasted so much of my life not feeling healthy and it was all because of a few grains. But now, I am happier for it. It feels good to feel good. Okay, that was cheesy.

My point is, if I'm gonna be gluten free for the long haul I might as well enjoy it. And share it. So here I am.

I have what?

If you are the one reader (other than my husband) over on my other blog, you know that I was planning on setting up this one. Why you ask? Well, back around April, I got diagnosed with a gluten allergy. It's been a long road since then and I wanted to share my experience. I know how difficult it can be to take on a food allergy and if I can give anyone some tips, well that's the whole point.