Caramelized Banana Coconut Quinoa

Wow, the title of this one sounds fancy! It is actually really easy, nutritious and as a bonus makes your house smell just divine! The only difficult part is holding back the urge to take the hot caramelized bananas for yourself and pair them with some vanilla ice cream - and I don't even like bananas :) 

Quinoa is a wheat free grain that is kind of like a small little pearl and has a little "pop" when you bite it. It is almost like couscous, but a little "crunchier". It is a good alternative to oatmeal or rice to fill the whole grain requirement of your little one's diet.

1 cup water

1 13.5 oz can of whole fat coconut milk

1 cup quinoa

3 large bananas - overripe is good

2 tbls. butter, softened

A few dashes of cinnamon

1 tbls. vanilla flavored agave nectar (if you have plain just add in a little vanilla when you mash the bananas)

First, turn on your broiler and let it preheat while you start the quinoa. Add the water and 1 cup of coconut milk to a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Add in the quinoa, give it a stir and let it come back up to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.

Now start on your bananas. Peel them and slice them in half lengthwise. Place them into a baking dish (I used a bread pan) and give them a good smear of butter and sprinkle them with a little cinnamon. Lastly, drizzle them with the agave nectar. Now place them under the broiler on an oven rack about 6 inches from the heat.

 

Heat them for about 15 minutes, watching them closely to make sure they don't get to brown. You want them to get a nice caramely brown color. The will start smelling really, really good when they get close to being done. They should look a little something like this...

Really, if you are a banana person, I dare you not to break out the vanilla ice cream right now. Maybe it is not a bad idea to add a 4th banana into the mix so that you can eat one ;)

Let your bananas cool down a bit, by this time your quinoa should be just about done and look like this...

The liquid should be absorbed and there should be a noticeable little white crescent shape on the grains.

Now mash your bananas with a fork and add them into the quinoa and mix them all together. As the mixture starts to cool it will get thicker, so I added the rest of the coconut milk, a little at a time to reach the right consistency. 

Now, if your little one is good with rice and small pasta, you can serve this as is. It has almost a crunchy texture. Since little A has not had it before I went ahead and pureed half of it in the food processor and then mixed it back together with the un-pureed half to ease him into it. If you have a younger baby I would recommend starting out by pureeing the whole thing.

By the way, this freezes just fine - the bananas get a little darker, but taste the same :)

Banana Pudding Parfaits

One of my son's nutritionists suggested I make him pudding when he was going through one of his "no liquids" phases because it is a way to "sneak" liquid in and when made with whole milk or cream it can be quite calorie dense. I don't know about you, but I don't have a ton of time to make homemade pudding and every time I would go to buy a pack of jell-o pudding I would look at the ingredients on the back and put it right back onto the shelf. Luckily the other day I finally found organic pudding at the store! I was beyond excited and bought a few different flavors. First up to try was my son's favorite flavor of everything, banana.

I also knew that adding fresh fruit to the pudding would be a must to add a more nutritional value.

1 box of organic banana pudding

 Whole milk or cream

2 yellow peaches, peeled and cut into slices

1 tbls unsalted butter

1 tbls agave nectar

1 banana, mashed with a fork

Make the pudding according to the directions on the box using whole milk or cream. Follow the directions for the peach puree in the Tiny Toddler Turnovers - or better yet, use the leftover puree!

Use a small ice cream scoop or large spoon and put one scoop of putting the the bottom of 4 small bowls or ramekins. On top of the pudding put 1/4 of the mashed banana, followed by 2 scoops of the pudding. Next up is a large scoop of peach puree followed by 2 more scoops of pudding. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours and Ta-Da! Pudding parfaits. If you want to make it a little special put a spoonful of whipped cream on top :)
 

You can really use any flavor of pudding and any of your child's favorite fruit for this. Another idea - layer the pudding and fruit into Popsicle molds instead of bowls and freeze them for a healthy pudding pop in the summertime!


For a lower calorie version omit the butter and agave and use low fat milk in the pudding.

Tropical Smoothie

I recently read a lot about coconut milk and how it is high in calories and fat but still has very healthy qualities. Perfect for my recipes - but how do you incorporate it? Even though it is unsweetened, it still has a fairly coconutty flavor. So I have been able to figure out how to fit it into a few recipes so far, this one seemed like a fairly obvious choice to start with :) My son has issues with liquids and a thick smoothie like this is good to use to teach your child how to use a straw.

This is a really easy, quick puree - no cooking is required unless you are making it for a very little one, in which case I would recommend you steam the fruit (except the banana) for about 10 minutes prior to pureeing. I use organic mango and papayas, but use regular bananas and pineapple to save a little cash. Since the skin on them is so thick and you peel them, very little (if any) pesticides get into the fruit. 

1 Mango, peeled

1 Papaya, peeled and seeds removed

1 Large Banana, peeled

1/4 of a pineapple, skin and core cut off

1/2 a 14 oz. can of full fat coconut milk

Cut all the fruit into 1 inch chunks.

Dump it all into a food processor (I use my beaba babycook, but all you need is a regular or mini food processor) and add in the coconut milk. 

Puree until smooth. You can thicken this up with baby oatmeal cereal or you can thin it down with milk and serve it in a straw cup as a smoothie. Freeze the remainder in ice cube trays.

To make a low cal version just substitute reduced fat coconut milk.