Daddy, Papa and Me

Every summer we spend some time in Hawaii, on the Big Island, and every year I experiment with recipes for our time in Hawaii. My criteria:

1. Ingredients have to have a local origin or _could be_ grown commercially on a local basis if there was demand.

2. Ingredients (some at least) have to have some local significance culturally. Either the recipe origins should be Hawaiian (LauLau’s) or the ingredients have cultural significance (rice from immigrants, taro from Hawaiians)

3. Healthy

Last couple years I’ve modified an Avocado Pie to include a brown rice flour crust (though wheat does grow in Hawaii and grown commercially, I substitute rice flour instead for cultural and health reasons) and made my own version of Lau Lau to be a bit healthier than pork (chicken and local crab, w/ sweet potato).

I just started my new banana bread recipe experiment (see notes below), but version 1.1 was a hit this weekend!! :

1 cup mashed banana (about two med. ripe bananas)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup amaranth flour
1/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts (optional)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil (preferably macadamia nut oil, but canola or safflower will do)

Add bananas, sugar and vanilla to bowl and mix well.
Add eggs and blend in well.
In separate bowl, mix flours, nuts, baking power and soda and salt and mix.
Add banana mix and oil to flour and mix till well blended.
Lightly grease (spray oil) a loaf pan and cook at 350′ for 35 minutes.

NOTES:
This is only version 1.1, but everyone LOVED IT. It was gone in less than 12 hours. I thought there was a slight alkaline aftertaste (from baking soda), but the other two adults and two kids who tried it didn’t notice it.

It’s also very healthy. Easily digested grains that together make a whole protein. Of course banana and nuts! It’s gluten-free and with changes below it’d be vegan.

Future changes for versions 2.0 and above:
*substitute an extra banana, or a combination of extra banana and some arrowroot powder, for eggs. This isn’t to make it more ‘Hawaiian’, but rather just to give it a bonus “vegan” rating .

*change baking soda ratio (to get rid of the aftertaste I have). Perhaps add a bit of lemon juice or crushed pineapple to counteract.

*consider crushed pineapple in recipe for extra taste, vitamin C

*substitute honey for sugar possibly (need to lower liquid/oil?)

Ingredients not able to locally make or grow in Hawaii:

1. baking powder/baking soda (but I don’t know a substitute)
2. amaranth: able to grow, but don’t know of a local source
3. rice: culturally important in Hawaii, used to be grown commercially there, but no longer. I have a sneaking suspicion though that with the rise in fuel costs and rice costs, this might change

Tags: cooking, recipe

This entry was posted by Trey on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 9:44 am and is filed under The Kitchen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.