Banana, Raspberry & Coconut Loaf

Every time I seem to buy banana’s, I never opt for buying them individually but rather in bunches so I always end up having a couple that start to turn brown. This automatically sends me into an involuntary mode where I put them in the freezer “to use for banana bread” as my mother always used to do. Unfortunately, I don’t make banana bread that often so last week when I decided to take inventory of what was in our freezer I came to the realisation that I in fact had 8 frozen bananas chilling in there… Anyway, these bananas and my craving for raspberries gave me every reason to make this delish loaf! I added a few tweaks to the recipe which worked in it’s favour so it went down a treat 🙂 This is definitely a comfort food recipe without the butter 🙂 Enjoy!

Ingredients

– 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
– 3/4 cups desiccated coconut
– 2/3 cups brown sugar
– 1tsp ground cinnamon
– 3 eggs
– 1tsp vanilla extract
– 1/2 cups rice-bran oil
– 3 medium ripe bananas, mashed
– 1/2 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen)
– a handful of chopped milk chocolate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 18C (160C Fan).
2. Grease your loaf tin.
3. Combine flour, coconut, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and make a well in the centre.
4. Whisk eggs, vanilla and oil in a jug then add the bananas.
5. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

6. Gently fold in the raspberries and chocolate.

7. Pour into your pan, smooth the surface and sprinkle with some coconut.

8. Bake for 1hr-1hr10min or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
9. Cool in the pan for 20 mins before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

10. Slice into pieces and serve with a hot cup of tea! Enjoy!

Heart-warming Chicken Couscous

The last few days have been a bit trying for me on all fronts so I thought I would make something both comforting and warming… I found this chicken couscous recipe which is truly SO easy to make and all the flavours made me smile… I would really recommend giving it a try.

Ingredients:

– 1tbsp olive oil
– 1 onion, thinly sliced
– 200g chicken breasts, diced
– good chuck fresh root ginger
– 1-2 tbsp harissa paste, plus extra to serve
– 10 dried apricots
– 220g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
– 200g couscous
– 200ml hot chicken stock (I would suggest using a little more)
– handful of chopped coriander to serve

Method:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion for 1-2 mins just until softened. Add the chicken and fry for 7-10 mins until cooked through and the onions have turned golden. Grate over the ginger, stir through the harissa to coat everything and cook for 1 min more.
2. Tip in the apricots, chickpeas and couscous, then pour over the stock and stir once. Cover with a lid or tightly cover the pan with foil and leave for about 5 mins until the couscous has soaked up all the stock and is soft. Fluff up the couscous with a fork and scatter over the coriander to serve. Serve with extra harissa, if you like.