I'm glad you'll be able to sleep tonight,
Pat!
Blurose, thank you for the link!
Punkin, I completely misunderstood! I'm sorry for hijacking your thread.
Well, I made up a good bread/cake which is mostly sweetened by fruits, but you can add a little sugar to taste if you like.
Start with the flour amount, baking powder, baking soda, and salt from any banana bread recipe you like. Put as much sugar as you like, or not....I do add some, but this is a no-measure recipe for me.
In a food processor, blend a small banana, 2 Tablespoons or so of oil, and about 1/2 a good sized jar of unsweetened applesauce.
Mix that in with your dry ingredients, and taste for sugar.
Now beat the number of eggs your recipe calls for and mix batter.
Then add a small can of unsweetened crushed pineapple, sans juice, and some grated carrots, and stir in.
Finally, add some chopped up dates, and stir in gently. I pit and chop my own, but you could buy them pre-cut. I also roll them in sugar, but you can lightly dust them with a flour, so they won't sink.
Are you only tired of fruit which is raw? What about baked apples? You can fill the center with raisins, and dust the water and them with cinnamon and cardamom, or apple pie spice. You can add a little sugar, or not.
Ds drinks this: (Make sure the bananas are really ripe.) Banana, dates, peanut butter and milk. Blend. You can refrigerate or freeze the fruit to make it colder. If you'd like ice cubes, make them of milk, so they don't water down your drink.
Continuing with bananas, you can fry them in butter, adding a little sugar if you want, and cinnamon when they come out, if you like. I'm not sure what about sugar is the problem, so I don't think I'm being effective here....can you have/do you want, some maple syrup? You can use that with the fried bananas.
Back to drinks/smoothies....there are some good ones which are sugar-free.
This isn't a recipe, but it's something I keep in the house. They are a fruit bar of sorts, organic, no sugar added. The company is: Kettle Valley. Here are the ingredients from a blueberry one I have next to me:
Organic apples, organic natural flavor, purple carrot concentrate, blueberry concentrate and lemon juice concentrate.
The company makes several products I understand, but these say: Organic Fruit Snack, one apple in every bar. 0.7 oz. They make strawberry, mixed berry, peach etc. When I'm not making a dessert, and want something sweet, I will eat one.
Sometimes fruit seems more like a dessert if you add a dollop of whipped cream. By whipping your own, you can not sweeten it, or barely sweeten it.
Back to dates.... Dates are nothing like an apple, and are quite sweet. A couple of them can really end your sugar craving. I go to my local healthfood store, and get good ones. When they come home I lay them flat, single layer, and freeze in the deep freeze. Then put them in a container and keep frozen until I want one or two.
I like them, especially now, in the summer, straight from the freezer. They never freeze too hard to eat immediately.
Also, you can pit them and put a nutmeat in them to eat. Or fill with cream cheese and a nut, or not. Or fill with peanut butter. Someone I know puts a barbequed almond in each. Some people roll them in sugar once they are filled, and I know that some wrap in bacon and broil. I just eat them out of hand.
A biscuit or piece of toast is nice with a little spread of jam...you can butter the toast, or have bread or bagel spread with cream cheese, then add a bit of jam.
Yogurt flavored, and slightly sweet, is good. You can add some fresh fruit to it, like berries, or granola you can eat sprinkled over the top.
Well, I'm a bit tired tonight, but if I come up with more tomorrow, I'll be back to post it.
It produces a slightly different gel than 'normal' pectin does, and you can't store opened containers quite as forever in the fridge, but I've had jams made that way by other people and it is really perfectly acceptible IMO.)
