It’s been officially fall for about a week. Apparently our south Georgia weather did not get the memo because we are still enjoying surviving 95 degree days.
I always love the change of seasons, even if we have to look really hard for evidence of the change in the deep south. Our mornings and our evenings do cool down enough to do some porch swinging and chair rocking. You want to know what usually accompanies those 2 things? That’s right– tea/coffee drinking and talking.
The other morning–when there was a slight chill in the air, I went out to the front porch with Cason and Leighanne and we solved all of the world’s problems (ok–really we just talked about school, sports, etc.). Truthfully–it wouldn’t have mattered if we had just talked about our favorite new movie, we spent some sweet time just sharing about life with one another. That is time well invested, and it’s amazing how relaxing it is to begin your day that way. All around us the day was coming alive. The birds were busy flying and around and we could hear their own version of “good morning” discussions by the chirps and tweets taking place in the trees around us.
If you don’t have access to a porch or patio, you may just have to locate or create your own space for some porch swinging and chair rocking. It’s not really important that you have the actual space, but that you create the atmosphere for connecting. We live so quickly that we forget how important and vital it is to connect to your own family, with friends, with neighbors, and with people that come into your life for even short periods of time. The goal is connecting and sharing, the porch, the patio, the swing, are the means to connect.
Another fall trigger for me is the smell and taste of seasonal treats. I adore cinnamon, pumpkin, and dark chocolate. Not necessarily all together, but I have had that combo and I must say it was tasty. Last night I did some baking. Some gluten free baking. Yes, we are trying to take the next step of a healthy eating lifestyle. I’m not ready to forego all carbs, because there is certainly a place for a good pasta and even a white potato every once in a while, but I am trying to eliminate some carbs with better grain choices when I can.
Last night I made Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins. The recipe I used called for regular all purpose flour, so I created a gluten free flour from brown rice flour, almond flour, coconut flour and xanthan gum. I have tried using a combo of almond flour and coconut flour in the past, but I did not have much success. I did a little research and found out that xanthan gum acts as a binder and helps with baking. So the first thing I did was to make a cake/bread baking flour mix. I’ll give the link to the recipe I started following and the one I ended up with because I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand. Ha! I will also include the recipe for the muffins, because they were moist, not overly sweet, and yummy!
First things first, the baking flour recipe. This was the recipe I started with. I got the recipe from the Gluten-Free Palate.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups finely ground white rice flour
- 2 cups of tapioca flour
- 1/2 cup potato starch
- 1 1/4 tsp guar gum
Directions:
- Measure all ingredients into a medium bowl. Mix well. Then sift the ingredients together into a sealable container.
Here’s what I made because I basically didn’t have any of those ingredients on hand.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of brown rice flour
- 1 cup of almond flour
- 1 cup of coconut flour
- 1/2 cup of corn starch
- 1 1/4 tsp of xanthan gum
Then I mixed all of the ingredients with a whisk because I do not own a sifter. It made more flour than I needed, so I stored the remaining flour in a sealed container aka ziploc bag. Hey–I know how to roll with what I have on hand. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.
Now for the muffin recipe. This is a recipe that I tweaked over a year ago, so while I would love to give some baker their due credit, I don’t have a clue where the recipe came from. Sorry!
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick)
- 1/2 cup of honey
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup of almond milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 3 cups gluten-free baking flour mix
- 3 bananas mashed
- dark chocolate chips (you decide how much–I used about 1/3 to 1/2 of a 10 oz. bag.
- 1 cup of walnuts (optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a bowl combine all of your wet ingredients. In another bowl combine the dry ingredients except the dark chocolate chips, bananas and walnuts. Whisk the dry ingredients together and then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix with a mixer just enough to blend the ingredients together. Add the bananas and mix a little bit more. Finally, add the dark chocolate chips and walnuts and mix with a spatula or spoon.
Bake in muffin tins that are lined with baking cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the middle is done.
Voila–yummy muffin–good enough for a mid morning snack on the front porch in a swing! I may or may not be about to indulge in one right now!
Happy swinging, talking, connecting and eating!
