Bonkers for bananas!

This is my all time favourite go to banana bread recipe because it's sugar free, uses olive oil instead of butter and comes out super moist and soft. This is definitely more a banana 'bread' than banana 'cake' but feel free to use 1/2 of brown sugar instead of honey if you prefer a sweeter banana bread. If I'm making this to share with friends then I'll usually use sugar instead of honey. 

I find this banana "bread" (we all know it's cake) recipe to be the easiest thing to whip up and there's minimal washing up.

Ingredients
- 1 3/4 self-raising flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1/3 cup of honey or maple syrup or 1/2 cup of brown sugar if you prefer it sweeter
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup of coconut oil 
- 2 mashed bananas
- 2 peaches (diced). Optional

Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Mix the dry ingredients. 
- In a seperate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together and add to the dry ingredients.
- Mix well with a spatula and pour into a lined loaf tin.
- Bake for 50 - 55 minutes until cooked.
- Allow to cool before slicing.
- Easy :D

There's a cake cooker function on my rice cooker and I've always wanted to try it out so I made my first rice cooker cake a few days ago. It turned out fine but I left the cake in the rice cooker so the cake deflated ALOT. Next time, I'll be taking the cake out of the rice cooker immediately after it's cooker so the cake wont deflate. The cake took 70 minutes to cook in the rice cooker under the cake function. 

What's the difference between a baked banana bread and a rice cooker banana bread?
The rice cooker version is much easier to wash up :p
However, I prefer the baked version as the crust is harder whereas the rice cooker version is quite soft and chewy. 

Happy baking!
xoxo

I ate my first whole, baked cheese in a french restaurant in Guangzhou last year and after seeing something similar on Masterchef, decided to try and recreate it for Mr HHM's lunch . It was quick and simple and I'll definitely be making more of this!

Breakfast
What I've been eating for breakfast recently. Also, I've recently come back from working in China for nearly a year so will be posting up all the places we visited focusing on the food, scenery and what to watch out for!
(L-R,T-B, Omelette, loving flavoured water right now, homemade almond milk with dragonfruit and avocado smoothie, egg and cheese breakfast muffins)

Too many ham hocks!

I've always wanted to cook with ham hock but the only recipe that comes to mind is pea and ham soup. Does anyone have good ham hock recipes to share as I bought an extra hock?

Recipe from the McKenzie's Green Split Peas 500g packets
Ingredients
500g green split peas (washed)
3 carrots, diced
3 celery sticks, diced
1 large onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, sliced
1 smoked ham hock (fat removed)
1 reduced salt chicken stock cube (I didn't use any)
12 cups water
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste


1) Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Cover and simmer for approximately 1-11/2 hours or until thickened, stirring occasionally.
2) Remove hock and prepare by removing skin, dice the ham and set aside. Discard bay leaf.
3) Puree soup in blender.
4) Add ham back into soup and stir through.
5) Season to taste :) 

Mr Hippo loved it. Next time I'll definitely shred the ham smaller as I wasn't a huge fan of the chunks of meat in my soup!