Banana Milkshake

 I didn't have time to take any photos of this, so this is a generic picture of bananas!

We had lunch out, and the Swan Whisperer ordered a banana milkshake, despite having been warned that it was only Nesquik.  I had no sympathy, as he had been told, but then made this for a quick supper pudding!

2 bananas

500 ml oat milk (or, of course, dairy milk, or any other milk of your choice)

1 tbs muscovado sugar

Put everything in the blender and whizz!  Serves 2.  Delicious!

It's vegan unless you use cows' milk, in which case it is vegetarian.  I prefer oat milk, but that's taste, not virtue.

Healthy ice cream, aka frozen smoothie

I found this recipe when I first went on-line, over 25 years ago now.  I hadn't made it for ages, but we had some slightly over-ripe strawberries that weren't going to survive in the fridge and needed frozen, so.....

1 banana, sliced and frozen (open-freeze on a plate so the chunks don't stick together)

1/2 punnet ripe strawberries, frozen (or you could use pre-frozen strawberries)

1 standard tub, or 2 tbs thick Greek yoghurt

2 tsp honey (optional)

I found I'd too much yoghurt to fruit, so added some frozen raspberries.

Exact quantities are not important, nor, indeed, is the kind of fruit other than bananas!  I've also used fruit juice instead of yoghurt and honey (useful if you want it vegan) - you can always omit the honey if you prefer, too, but it does add a bit of sweetness that is necessary in a frozen dessert.  You could also use a fruit  yoghurt instead.... experiment!

Put everything in a food processor - a blender isn't sturdy enough - and work until it comes out as really smooth and delicious ice-cream.

If there is more than you want to eat in one sitting, put it in a freezer-proof container and put in the freezer.  It will freeze rather hard, but you can take it out of the freezer a little before you want to eat it.

Marmalade steamed pudding

 This wasn't totally successful - the sponge wasn't quite cooked in the middle, but nothing a few moments in the microwave couldn't cure.   But it was warm, lovely comfort food!

2 eggs
Weigh the eggs and measure out the same weight of butter, sugar and self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
Large tablespoonful of marmalade, jam, golden syrup or similar.  Stewed apple is very good, too.

Grease a pudding basin (think mine is 3 pints, but wouldn't swear to it) and put the marmalade in the bottom.  Use either the creaming or the all-in-one method to mix the remaining ingredients into a cake batter, which you then place on top of the marmalade.  

Cover the bowl with either a plastic lid or with greaseproof paper or similar.

  Place on the trivet in an Instant Pot.  Add about 400 ml boiling water to the pot.  I cooked this on steam at high pressure for 40 minutes,

but, as I said above, it turned out not to be quite cooked, even with mostly reducing the pressure at room temperature.  Many recipes say to steam without sealing for 15 minutes, and then sealed for 20, but I'm not sure whether that would have worked any better.  Maybe 45 minutes next time?  Anyway, it was delicious, served with custard.

UPDATE: Although it was very good, I think next time it will be a baked sponge pudding - you make exactly the same way, but cook in the oven (arguably in a cake tin) instead of steaming.  Moderate oven, 20-25 minutes.....