plantain

A couple of weeks ago while watching Sesame Street, I discovered plantains. I had heard of them before but never tried one. On Sesame Street they showed a mom cooking up some slices of plantain in a little vegetable oil, it looked pretty easy. So I bought a couple and gave it a try. It was fantastic, they taste like crackers, light and crisp. We have them salted or with a bit of cheese. Lily loves them. We call them banana cookies. Another bonus is that it slows down the poop machine a bit. A diet full of beans and veggies makes for a lot of poopy diapers.

We over bought the plantains and a few of them ripened to a yellow. You must cook them green or it doesn't work. So I didn't know what to do with the yellow plantains and I decided to experiment. I ended up making the best chocolate cupcakes ever, and they were without flour or egg. They were totally Miss Lily friendly and she got to taste cake for the first time. It was light a fluffy and moist. I was so pleased with myself. I mixed together mashed ripened plantain with some ricotta cheese, added a little vegetable oil and some sugar. In a separate bowl I mixed cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and then I sifted the dry ingredients into the wet. I haven't worked out the exact measurements yet, but I scooped the batter into a muffin tin and viola, chocolate cupcakes. I am currently waiting for another batch of plantains to ripen, but we keep eating banana cookies.

We have also been eating a lot of banana slices topped with organic peanut butter, yum. Very messy but worth it. I am very excited whenever I am able to expand Lily's limited diet to include something that is friendly to her food issues and something she is willing to actually eat.

She is allergic to wheat, oat, corn, egg, apple and tomato.