BANANA ORANGE OATS CAKE

AFTER EVERY SPECIAL PRAYER RITUALS AT HOME, I WOULD PREPARE SOMETHING WITH THE LEFTOVER FRUITS!

That too after some 15-16 days post the occasion. I love my choice of fruits but I am not supposed to have too much of them. The man would take a little only in his lunch boxes. The son ate fruits when packed in his snack box. I do not know really if he buys fruits for himself these days. Today, whilst on my morning walk, I saw a 11-12 year old boy in the school uniform having cup noodles. Such scenes make me get  angry at the parents. There isn't any excuse when it comes to parenting. Even if both the parents are working, it is not an ardent task to wake up early, prepare a butter bread toast or boil some noodles, broccoli, carrot, onion; season and feed the child and then send to the school. There is a primary school, a high school, a 7-Eleven outside of our back gate, such scenes are rampant; kids buying packaged food from the stores. I do not think the parents should have any excuse when their kids' health is concerned. I cannot thank the mother enough for teaching us the important lessons about home care through her tremendous dutifulness towards her family. For both of us family & kids are prime; we do not need much of resources to spend partying, chatting with friends. We only have weaknesses for buying saris which are not that pricey, household stuffs. In my case, I enjoy sitting alone in an eatery. I cannot just mingle with people. Most hilarious was a client, she gave me good business a few times and then almost claimed, placed a condition that I have to roam around the island with her. She  might have been a nice girl but I couldn't agree to that. Many a woman in this island made unnecessary calls without any intent to buy food from me. In business, I would seek profit and name, not friendship at all. A person of few words, I had to put an end to this. Although I love watching my friends party, sing and dance; I feel awkward amidst a crowd. There are many in the same food business, unfortunately, the Bengalis too want chole-bhature or idli-dosa on their plate instead of "lau-ghonto, chichinge-boti, dhokar dalna". Bengalis are those Indians who have forgotten their own food; they eat biryani, fish fry, chicken kobiraji, chicken and paneer masala day and night. At least the reels say that. 

WHY DOES OUR SON HAS TO PROVE HE IS DIFFERENT?

It feels he is in constant endeavour to prove he is weird and a rebel. Doesn't his mother pay enough attention to him that he has to behave this weird to get her occupied in his thought 24/7? Some 20 years back, all my friends would say he does all the weird acts to irritate me, that he behaves normal in my absence. Since then, until now; all my attention revolves around him, he doesn't need to do anything for that. May be for few years I became a bit absent minded, I curse myself for that. I should not have missed a single moment of his company. In fact, I need not curse myself, that happened because all of a sudden his father wanted him to be independent; I wasn't allowed to sleep with my child, bathe him, feed him, kiss him, hug him. What emotional upheaval I went through only I know, a void was created. I believe everything has a time, I need not had to be distanced with my playmate after a decade of staying with him alone, he was my only living play dough 24/7 whose childhood I shaped as per my wish. Nope, we are not in a strained relationship, it is our joint decision to keep our son's need our top priority. I do not like people talking about spending lakhs doing the interiors of their home but tell their kid / kids they do not have money to sponsor their kid's education abroad. However, they have money to buy property in two-three cities of India or buy jewellery for the spouse. That way I am proud of the underweight partner, I get angry when both my men ignore my emotional needs. I then keep myself happy cooking and eating. Yesterday, I ate those and gained 500 gm by this morning.

I had more rice than usual because the sides were dried fish, Hilsa fish and veg dal. More of wrong was to have two bowls of puffed rice and coconut. At night, I was to make appam, but the iron wok betrayed, the sides got stuck. The same batter was used in a non-stick pan. Having consumed a big amount of coconut caused me wind this morning, this keeps happening since my childhood. Too much of coconut consumed may cause acidity and wind in many, I am one of them.

WHAT IS BANANA OATS ORANGE CAKE?

I think this is the easiest and simplest of all the cakes I have made until now. Whatever I am unable to do is complex mathematics to me. All those three & four tier designer cakes are as complex as science, mathematics, geography taken together. But I love to bake and keep on doing that. Not only this vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan BANANA ORANGE OATS CAKE is easy make, we found it tasty too. I am  fond of using fruit juices in cakes, not really fond of dairy products, eggs, chocolates. All those chocolate rice & rainbow rice, sugar coated fruit strips atop a cake put me off. Fresh Fruit & Cream atop a cake is a love though the cream would have egg & dairy products in it. That too I avoid after the son relocated. To eat fancy stuffs you have to have an equally enthusiastic partner. He shows no interest, I too do not wish to spend on a choice of pastry only for myself. A Bengali mother would pause and think, "my child might be hesitating to have a 21$ meal in a choice of eatery or he may have skipped two meals to have that over the weekend! Let me wait until he gets a deserving job." However, mumma keeps buying from the Lazada, Shein, saris & kurtis while in Kolkata. This is the time and onwards I / we want the son's concern for us and attention. We are waiting for him to settle. We will see if he gets normal, else what to do, we would keep travelling from the Himalayas to the Kanyakumari. It is not right to complain about your kids unless they cause major harm to you. Anyway, I made myself something between "nonta suji and sujir upma" today, I cannot eat the gooey upma neither I had the patience of sprinkling a bit of water a few times on the roasted semolina to make what I enjoy.

I do not know why the son dislikes upma, poha, dosa. He would love  sausages, bacon, breads on his plate. His father too but he enjoys upma, chirer polao too. It is from him that we have learnt about upma in the early 90's. 

Few similar recipes from the Blog are DRAGON FRUIT CAKE, VEGETARIAN GLASS CAKE, STEAMED TAPIOCA CAKE

INGREDIENTS :

OATS : 1 COFFEE MUG

FRESH ORANGE JUICE : 1/2 COFFEE MUG

MASHED BANANA : 1/2 COFFEE MUG

SLICED BANANA : 1 SMALL TEA CUP

RICE FLOUR : 1/4 COFFEE MUG

CORN FLOUR : 2 TBSP

SUGAR : 4 TBSP [YOU MAY NEED MORE] [I USED BROWN SUGAR]

BAKING SODA : A PINCH OR TWO

BAKING POWDER : 1/4 TSP

OIL : 2-3 TBSP

PROCEDURE :

Mix together the orange juice and the mashed banana pulps. 

Take the oats, rice flour, corn flour, baking powder & soda in a bowl and mix well.

Add the wet ingredients, oil and the sugar to the dry ingredients, mix loosely. We do not need to beat vigorously.

Grease an oven proof bowl.  Add the batter, tap on the counter to level well. Arrange the banana slices atop.

Mine is a convection mode microwave oven. I did place the low height wired stool inside the microwave.

I preheated the oven at 160*C. I did place the bowl with batter atop the wired stool, closed the door and baked it for some 20-22 minutes. We were done.

Temperatures may vary in different machines. The cooking time may slightly differ in your's.

The only mistake I did was that I sliced the bananas thicker, I had to slice them thinner. If you are eating it fresh, there would not be any issue. If you refrigerate, the banana slices would darken if you wouldn't slice them thick.