Gluten free fluffy apple & banana pancakes

I don't know about your family, but mine love pancakes! They are incredibly easy to knock up but feel like a bit of a treat in the morning. Beats cereal from a box hands down!

Having discovered this fantastic gluten free flour from Doves Farm (it's a mix of rice, potato, tapioca, maize, buckwheat), I use it in place of regular wheat flour, but both work equally well here.

I often up the protein quotient by adding a tablespoonful of Great Lakes Gelatin (Collagen Hydrolysate). I use this every single day in coffee, porridge, smoothies or whatever as it's very good for you and is undetectable to taste). Or you could just as easily add some Lucuma powder for a wonderful butterscotch flavour.  It's packed with iron and minerals and no empty calories like sugar. You could add any other 'superfood' like Maca or Boabab for that matter.

The Paleo Mom's Garlic and Lemon Roasted Cauliflower

As this blog is generally supposed to be about healthy food, I guess I should balance out my first post, which heavily featured chocolate!  Actually, I consider dark chocolate to be very healthy. It's choc full of good stuff, but I'll save that for another post!

I love cauliflower. Had some last night, in fact. I have always enjoyed mine slathered in cheese sauce with a lovely crispy topping, like this with a side of pork.  It doesn't matter what cut of pork, or how the pork is cooked, I just love the flavour combo. I guess my all time favourite would have to be my husband's BBQ pulled pork. I am drooling at the mere mention. You can find him demonstrating how to make it if you click on that link. He's not always around to grill so I've devised a cunning way of replicating it in the indoor oven, which fakes the BBQ version. I will post a link to that soon.

I digress. Back to cauliflower. This is a very simple recipe from  award winning food blogger The Paleo Mom. If you haven't discovered her yet, rejoice! It's better late than never. She is the most scientifically sound voice in the paleo community and even has a Ph.D after her name. Now you may ask, 'why paleo?'  I've been looking into this way of eating for some time. It is a way of life as opposed to a fad diet and eliminates inflammatory foods such as soy, grains, some dairy and refined, chemical laden processed food. It's also heavy on the organic fruit and veggies, although grass-fed meat and wild-caught fish are heavily endorsed. We mostly eat this way anyway, but I'm struggling to give up the grains. I tend to bloat after eating certain foods so think dropping the gluten would probably significantly reduce the amount of times I have to blame it on the dog!

Here's the link to her recipe:

http://www.thepaleomom.com/2013/01/garlic-and-lemon-roasted-cauliflower-21dsd-friendly.html

Moelleux au Chocolat

These little beauties were something I used to whip up at the drop of a hat, but I realised the other day that I haven't made them in absolutely ages.  They are ridiculously easy to make.  My starting point for this recipe was Nigella's molten chocolate babycakes from How to Be a Domestic Goddess.  My copy was given to me by my sister, Alison, when it was first published and she dutifully stood in line in December 2000 and had it signed for my birthday present.  Seeing as my birthday is 6 days before Christmas, I got a Happy Christmas dedication instead of Happy Birthday but, being well used to the birthday/Christmas pressie combo, I was happy as a pig in clover! I love a cook book and have amassed quite a collection but, for years, I'd always go back to this one for inspiration.