Apricot Nut Bread

This is another "green diet" recipe. So I'm sure it's not 100% Dr. Fuhrman approved. However it has some great ingredients and is much better for you than cake or brownies. I want to try replacing the canola oil with applesauce but I haven't tried that yet. It's quite a filling bread and I really liked it.


Apricot Nut Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 cup apple juice
• ½ cup all-fruit apricot spread or apricot jam
• 2/3 cup chopped dried apricots
• ½ cup oat bran
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 2 Tbs honey
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ cup chopped walnuts

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Bring the apple juice to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add the apricot spread, apricots, and oat bran, let stand for 5 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, combine the oil, bananas, and honey in a large mixing bowl; whisk well. Add apricot mixture. Add the dry ingredients to the banana-apricot mixture, stirring just until moist.
4. Spoon the batter into a greased loaf pan. Back for 55-65 minutes or until pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool and enjoy.

Bran Muffins

I've altered the recipe to make it as close as I could to Fuhrman approved, except for the eggs and skim milk; but pace yourself, because Tanner and I ate all 18 muffins in 3 days! That's a lot of fiber, if you know what I mean, and more grains than you should have, but at least they're good for you, right? Tanner kept calling them brownies he liked them so much. 

Cream together 3/4 cup sweetener (we have a bag of Splenda, it can be used in baking) and 3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

Add 2 beaten eggs

1 overripe banana

Add: 3 c all bran cereal

Pour 1 cup boiling water over the cereal, egg, sugar mixture and let sit for about 10 minutes to soften cereal. I usually give my  my mixer a few turns just to get all of the cereal wet before I leave it for the 10 minutes.

Add: 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

2 cups skim milk w/ 1 Tb vinegar, let sit 2-3 minutes before adding.

Mix, pour into muffin tin and bake on 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

These are good to have around if you are really tempted, because they are really healthy, as long as you don't eat as many as Tanner and I did. Serve warm with spray butter!

Tanner's Dream Pie

This isn't strictly Fuhrman so use it sparingly. We actually haven't tried it yet, but it came to me in a dream, and next time we want a desert I'm going to make it. It should be cheap and easy to make.

Directions:
(1) Make one batch of the banana oat cookie batter that is listed on the blog.
(2) Press this into a pie dish as pie crust. Bake in the oven for what ever it says for the banana oat cookies. Be sure to spray the pan well so crust doesn't stick.
(3) Make one batch of banana cream low fat/no sugar pudding mix. 
(4) Chop up 1 or 2 bananas and throw it in the pudding.
(5) Add frozen strawberries, blueberries, raspberries (whatever you have in the freezer for shakes and such) to the pudding.
(6) Mix pudding and poor it into banana oat cookie pie crust.
(7) Freeze!!!

I'm pretty sure this is going to be a delicious desert. Again I wouldn't make this all the time...but on a Friday or Saturday night it would go perfect with a good movie.

Banana Oat Cookies

www.drfuhrman.com

 Ingredients:
 
 1/2 cup raisins or chopped dates
 2 medium bananas, mashed
 1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
 1/3 cup chopped walnuts or almonds
 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut
 1 teaspoon vanilla
 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
 100% fruit spread, any flavor, if desired 
 
 
Instructions:
 1. Add 2 tablespoons water to dates or raisins and soak for 30 minutes. 
 2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. 
 3. Combine the mashed bananas and the oats. Add the nuts, coconut, vanilla, cinnamon, and the soaked dates or raisins. Mix well. 
 4. Drop by tablespoons onto a non-stick cookie sheet. If desired, flatten a little and make an indentation into the center of the cookie. Add the fruit spread. 
 5. Bake for 13 minutes or until golden brown. 
 Makes 14 cookies. 

Enjoy!