this is lemonade

A mindful, grateful, creative life: Life constantly hurls lemons at us. I’m on a mission to make lemonade as best I can, by God’s grace.


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Gluten Free Banana and Peanut Butter Pancakes

I hereby present to you something interesting, simple and quite yummy. You can make it with two ingredients, but I made it with four and then went right ahead and made it into a meal. I was totally inspired by Joy of Oh Joy! who has a little cutie called Ruby, she has good taste has Ruby. I made a more grown-up and (very slightly, perhaps) less healthy option.

Here’s my brunch for one. You could always make it a light breakfast and share between two (if you must). I got four small pancakes out of the following quantities.

Gluten Free Banana and Peanut Butter Pancakes | this is lemonade

Gluten Free Banana and Peanut Butter Pancakes, served with bacon and rocket

Ingredients | One each of the following:

  • Ripe banana
  • Generous teaspoon peanut butter (smooth or crunchy, you decide)
  • Tablespoon Greek yoghurt
  • Medium egg
  • Rasher of bacon (optional)
  • Handful of rocket (optional)

1. Mash the banana into as fine a pulp as you can. If it is ripe enough, a fork is sufficient for this. Mix in the peanut butter and then the yoghurt making sure the mixture is as smooth as you can get it. At this point, the mixture will be quite thick.

2. Mix in the egg. A small whisk may make it easier at this point, but I found it easy enough to fold in the egg carefully using the fork. Make sure you incorporate all the ingredients well.

Gluten Free Banana and Peanut Butter Pancakes | this is lemonade

Gluten Free Banana and Peanut Butter Pancakes | this is lemonade

3. If you are just planning on making the pancakes, then go right ahead and skip this step. Otherwise, fry the bacon in a preheated frying pan. I like to use a non-stick pan so that I don’t have to add extra oil. When the bacon is crisped and brown, remove and leave to rest on some kitchen paper to soak off any excess fat.

4. Turn the heat down and spoon the pancake mixture into the bacon fat (or preheated oil) before turning the heat back up. Fry the mixture until you see little bubbles appearing all over the mixture and a faint browning at the edges. This will cook more slowly than standard pancakes and if you try to turn them too quickly, they will collapse so be warned!

Gluten Free Banana and Peanut Butter Pancakes | this is lemonade

5. Serve immediately. I sandwiched the bacon and some rocket between the pancakes. The flavours of the salty bacon and nutty rocket worked really well with the peanut buttery pancakes to make a very satisfying meal!

Gluten Free Banana and Peanut Butter Pancakes | this is lemonade

I hope you give this a go. It’s simply a glorified fried egg so it’s really fun to make if you have the time, especially if you like bananas – the riper the better because the sweetness comes through perfectly 🙂 Do you have any favourite weekend treats in the kitchen? That idyllic weekend morning, when we all supposedly spend relaxing hours in the kitchen, making a fabulous breakfast or brunch…does that happen in your home? Well this was a real treat to make and to eat, and did not take much time either – my favourite bit 🙂

Gluten Free Banana and Peanut Butter Pancakes | this is lemonade

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Happy Monday!

It’s dull, gloomy, grey, rainy, windy, overcast, cold… did I mention grey..? I’d love to restart the day, eat breakfast again and have another go at it. Aaahh well, not an option… how’s your last Monday of January 2013 been so far?

Here’s to a good evening! Do you have any sparkly plans? I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to try and make mine sparkly and hope the sparkles last into tomorrow!


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READY

This is the food of champions. Protein packed. Flavourful. Satisfying. Oh whatever. I’m not swimming any lengths today or scoring any goals or pounding any tarmac. I’m just going to eat like a champion and then strike some keys and talk to some fabulous people.

Simply scramble-fry an egg or two, smash some avocado with a crack of pepper and a splash of lime juice. Oh, throw in a pinch of cayenne for that extra kick to get you started. Pile it generously onto some Kallo Organic Rice Cakes and crunch away. Delicious!

I’m ready 🙂

#15 | READY

Photo A Day Aug | READY thisislemonade.wordpress.com

In an attempt to console myself for there being no gold medals to cheer for right now, I’m watching this.

[This post is one in a series inspired by Fat Mum Slim’s photo a day challenge. I’m exploring ideas and often writing off the back of the idea of the day. It’s a chance to relax a bit in August but also do something slightly different. If you take part let me know – I’d love to see how you get creative with the daily posts!]

Lovely and moist


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Yummy and moist carrot cake

Yummy and moist carrot cake

Yummy and moist carrot cake

There are not just a few people among my friends and family who love carrot cake. I’ve been meaning to try my hand at baking my own since having tasted such a variety of shop-bought and café versions. My first port of call was my favourite recipe site, where I found Lennie’s offering rated by over 400 cooks at pretty much 5 stars. Yesterday, almost three months after I saved it to my cookbook, I baked my own with some modifications.

I prefer a nice chunky wedge rather than slender slices. However, I imagine the quantities below would fit just as well into a wider, shallower tin which would probably require less baking time.

You will need…
2 cups wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons sodium bicarbonate
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 ½ cups muscovado sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 medium eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups grated carrots
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 can crushed pineapple, well-drained (225-250g/8 oz.)

Directions…
1. Place a rack in the centre of the oven and preheat oven to 175°C/350°F. Line a 7 inch/18cm diameter deep cake tin with baking parchment.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sodium bicarbonate, baking powder, salt and ground cinnamon.
3. Make a well in the centre and add sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla extract. Mix well with a wooden spoon into smooth thick batter. Add carrots, coconut, walnuts and pineapple, incorporating evenly.
4. Spoon mixture into cake tin and bake for about 60-80 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Ready to bake!

Ready to bake!

To finish the cake, you can cover with some cream cheese icing (which I usually love). Because I was hoping to share it with the men in my family who don’t really like sugary things, I did not ice the cake this time. Instead I put aside 3 walnut halves unchopped for pressing into the centre of the batter, before putting it in the oven to bake.

My mum texted me today to say that she’d had a slice for breakfast and it was “delicious” (now that’s very high praise coming from my mum)! I hope you have some fun with it too. Thank you to Lennie for sharing a delicious recipe!