As most of you know, I love nuts.  Specifically peanuts.  My typical go-to meal for when we have guests is a peanut satay chicken stir-fry (using this sauce), followed by a chocolate pudding (recipe here).  We recently had some dinner guests where one of the kids was/is allergic to nuts.  All nuts.  My alternative go-to main course recipe is the broccoli and bacon fettucine (recipe here), but I was told that the father of the family couldn’t stand broccoli.  Add this to us trying to eat healthier, and limit sweets with sugar to just once a week (and we had already committed to a dessert later that weekend).  Now this shouldn’t have caused me to panic, but I did …

So, Abby and I looked through my recipe folder and came up with a healthy dessert, which didn’t contain any nuts.  I took my chocolate banana pie (recipe here) and adapted it.  Abby helped me, as she wants to learn how to cook ALL the recipes in my folder.  And by all, I mean ALL.  She has in her mind that we’ll knock off a few recipes each week, she’ll help me and take notes on what I change (’cause I do change, even my own recipes!).  Anyway, more on that later.

Our adaptations were:

• Instead of walnuts in the crust, we used flaxseed meal
• Instead of peanut butter in the filling, we used sunflower seed butter

Nothing to out of the ordinary, but gee, it was yummy!

The funny thing was, when Abby and I were making this pie, I was encouraging her to try all the ingredients so she got a sense of what each thing tasted like.  As most of you are aware, Abby hates dried fruit.  Really hates it.  To the point that every time I give her something I’ve made I have to tell her whether it has any dried fruit in it or not.  So, making the crust with dates, flaxseed meal and cocoa, she wouldn’t eat the dates by themselves.  When they had all been processed together, she tried some.  She’s a funny girl, that one, but I love her heaps and wouldn’t want her any other way.

Oh yeah, for the main course we had ribs and veggies.  Grant cooked the ribs and is becoming quite the expert in the art.  They were VERY yummy!

Anyway, hope you’ve enjoyed reading my adventures.  Stay tuned for more cooking with kids stuff as Abby and I go through the recipes …

Until next time, enjoy cooking at home!

Sarah