T Stands For Banana Bread, Garden Update and Kitties

Hello everyone,

Hope your week is off to a good start.  I’m sorry I am so behind with everything, commenting, visiting, posting etc, apologies if I missed visiting you last week!  I have been doing hard manual labour for the last week and when I come in, I eat and fall asleep.  It’s raining today so I am hoping to do better and do a bit of catching up!  But first today I am sharing a bit of a garden catch-up, a kitty catch-up and one of my most used vegan baking recipes for the T Gang and for the Blog Along with Effy, links to all at the end of the post along with a complete list of posts for September!

First the kitties…

Miss P has been enjoying the experience of me being in the garden with her, there are some photos of her doing just that here, she’s always so surprised to come round a corner and see me there lol “it’s you, my human” but today it is raining and unbelievably all three of them are in the same room asleep!  It’s about 15C outside but in the sunroom it’s still a balmy 22C so they are all trying to ignore each other and enjoy basking in the heat.  I opened the window for some ventilation and Miss Lily decided to pop her head through and see what’s what.  She’s on the topmost platform on the cat tree, about 175cm up!

And then the gardening…

The last of the blueberries.  I really only got about a bowlful in total this year as a bird ate most of them as soon as they became ripe.

I wasn’t too bothered as I figured it probably needed them more than I did.

As usual I did get a lot of rhubarb!  This is part of the second harvest…

And we are getting to the end of the flowering on the butterfly bush, but with the sunny days, there are still visiting butterflies…  two for one in this photo!

Tea Stands for… Banana Bread

This one was made a few days ago and as you can see, there is not much left!  I forgot to take a photo of it when it came out the oven and then it got eaten and it was too late lol.

BANANA BREAD (Vegan)

INGREDIENTS
2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
1 tablespoon flaxseed meal (golden)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup rapeseed (canola or carotino) oil
1 cup pureed ripe bananas (about 2 large bananas)**
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup almond milk or soy milk or other plant milk

* optional 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, chopped pecans or walnuts
** Mash up your banana then measure it for an accurate cup measurement

METHOD
Preheat oven to 180C/ 350F. Grease a 9 x 5-inch metal loaf pan really well with whatever you want to grease it with. Since it’s vegan I use Pure, which is a vegan non-dairy spread (similar to margarine), or you can use oil.

First we will be mixing the dry ingredients, then the wet ingredients and combining them in one bowl, so to start –
In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, flax meal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, mixing well and put aside.
In a large bowl, puree your banana. I use a potato masher or if you don’t have one a fork will do the job but will take longer. Then add the brown sugar, rapeseed/canola oil, and vanilla. Whisk together until smooth like a batter.  Then take the dry mixture from the first bowl and the almond/soy milk, and mix it till it is just incorporated.

At this point stir in any extras eg cinnamon, vegan choc chips or nuts if required but the bread is great on its own with no extras!
Scoop the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until the bread is puffed in center and firm to the touch, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Let the bread cool in the pan for 15 minutes, and remove from the tin and leave to cool on a rack.

Eat the bread!  Or if you don’t want to eat it all, this bread also freezes well.

WEIRD INGREDIENTS you might not be used to:
Golden Flaxseed Meal – can be found in supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury (UK) definitely have it) health food stores, and Amazon
Rapeseed oil and Canola oil are the same thing with different names. Supermarkets have it. I would not recommend substituting other oils like olive though you can because the flavour can be too strong so that’s a risk you take.  In the UK there is also another oil that is quite good, it’s called Carotino oil, which is a mix of rapeseed and red palm oil and claims to be healthier.  I tend to buy that one, it is also cheaper than rapeseed oil.

I ran the ingredients through a calorie counter and here is the estimate

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 12 – estimate you can get 12 slices from the loaf
Amount per serving
Calories 237
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 11.9g 15%
Saturated Fat 2.9g 14%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 96mg 4%
Total Carbohydrate 30.2g 11%
Dietary Fiber 1.6g 6%
Total Sugars 11.1g
Protein 2.8g
Vitamin D 0mcg 0%
Calcium 49mg 4%
Iron 1mg 8%
Potassium 231mg 5%

One of my favourite cups . . .

is this one from Anthropologie from a few years ago.  Isn’t it funny how you can be drawn to a cup and it becomes your favourite while you ignore all other cups and mugs in the cupboard?

Hope you enjoyed the post, Happy T Day!  Let me know what you think in the comments.   As always, thanks for reading!Ingredients
see above

Challenges

T Stands For Tuesday – T stands for –   banana bread

Blog Along with Effy – Day 14

Links to all the days of the September blog-along

Sept 1st – UFOs Tapestry Cushion and Harris Tweed TBD
Sept 2nd – Second on the Second – e-reader covers
Sept 3rd – There is no enjoyment like reading
Sept 4th –  A Day in the Garden and UFO update
Sept 5th – Begin the Beguine
Sept 6th – She Sells Seashells on the Seashore
Sept 7th – Vintage Children Doing Vintage Things
Sept 8th – WOYWW Desk, Garden, Kitties, Kitchen and Blog Along One Week In
Sept 9th – August Reading List
Sept 10th – Sorry Not Sorry
Sept 11th – A Peek Inside The Fabric Stash
Sept 12th – Garden Catch-Up, Bees, Cats, Cat Mint
Sept 13th – Happy Roald Dahl Day!
Sept 14th – this post
This month I decided to join in with Effy Wild’s blog-along – 30 posts in 30 days same as we did in April this year.  The idea is to blog every day if you can, but also to comment on other people’s blogs to keep the conversation going.  There is a facebook group where you can link your posts and find other people’s to go visit and comment.

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