Like gooseberries it can be tart and sour, but with the right added ingredients it can be really good and, like gooseberries, it can go well with savoury dishes as well as puddings.  It’s especially good where the meat is fattier and has a strong flavour of its own, like lamb. 

While I’m a fan of things like rhubarb fool (and creamy, mousse-like dish) I still like my rhubarb best when it is stewed, either as it comes or in some sort of crumble.  When I was a child, Dad would grow rhubarb but only half the family actually liked eating it.  Mum’s simple solution was to stew it with oranges.  The orange adds a slight sweetness (removing the need for sugar), offsets the tartness and makes this almost bearable even to the most hardcore rhubarb-haters!

Paleo stewed rhubarb and orange

Ingredients (serves 2):
4 sticks rhubarb
2 medium oranges

Directions:

1. Gently cut the ends off the rhubarb stalks, not quite cutting all the way through so that you can then peel down the flat side of the rhubarb as you remove the end.  If the skin is quite tough, the skin will hold together and peel off and it would be worth peeling away some of the skin for the other sides of the stalk.  If it isn’t too tough to eat then it will all break off into a few strings as you try to peel down the rhubarb stalk, in which case there isn’t any need to peel the skin off elsewhere.
2. Chop the rhubarb stalks into chunks about 1 inch long.
3. Peel the orange and cut the flesh into chunks, removing any pips that might be in the orange.
4. Place the rhubarb and orange in a saucepan with approximately 3-4 tablespoons of water (you’ll get used to eyeballing this if you stew fruit often).  Put a lid on the pan, bring to a simmer and then reduce the heat to low and leave to simmer for about 10 minutes until the rhubarb is broken up.  Keep an eye on it as it simmers and add another tablespoon of water if it looks like it is running out of fluid (this will depend on how air-tight your pan lid is).
5. Serve up on its own or you could turn it into fruit crunch or simply add a splash of double cream or a dollop of whipped coconut cream – however you like it!

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: easy baked bananas with orange zest yoghurt
2. Paleo recipes: fennel and orange salad
3. Paleo recipes: chocolate and orange mousse

Paleo chocolate and orange mousse

Ingredients (fills 5-6 small ramekins):
200g dark chocolate (we use 85% or 90%)
3 eggs, separated
Zest of ½ orange, finely chopped
4 fl oz of freshly squeezed orange juice (approximately juice of 1 orange – if you are a tiny bit short of juice after squeezing the orange then top up with cold water)
Double (heavy) cream to serve (optional)

Directions:

1. Break the chocolate up into a large heatproof bowl and add the orange juice.
2. Place the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water and be sure that the bowl doesn’t touch the water.  Keeping the heat low allow the chocolate to melt, which will take about 6 minutes.  If you leave it too long the chocolate will go grainy and dry, rather than into a smooth paste – if this happens beat the chocolate vigorously with a fork and, if you are lucky, it will eventually turn back to a smooth paste!
3. While the chocolate is melting, beat the egg yolks in a bowl, adding the zest to the yolks.
4. Take the chocolate off the heat and add to the yolks and zest, beating together until the chocolate is glossy and smooth.
5. Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until they form soft peaks.
6. Using a clean metal spoon fold a tablespoon of the egg whites into the chocolate mix, using this to lift the chocolate away from the sides of the bowl.
7. Fold the rest of the egg whites into the bowl a little at a time, taking care not to lose the air out of the egg whites (this is what makes the mousse light and fluffy).
8. Spoon the mousse mix into your chosen serving dish or into small ramekin dishes.  Cover with cling film and leave it in the fridge to set for at least two hours before serving.
9. This is best served with some double (heavy) cream for pouring over the top.

Related posts:

1. Paleo kitchen experiments: chocolate mousse
2. Paleo recipes: hot chocolate rum soufflé
3. Paleo recipes: easy baked bananas with orange zest yoghurt

Paleo hot chocolate rum souffle

Ingredients (serves 4):
110g plain chocolate
2 tbsp rum
4 egg yolks
6 large egg whites

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven and a baking sheet to 200C and liberally butter a 2 pint soufflé dish.
2. Break the chocolate into a large heatproof bowl and add the rum.
3. Place the bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water and be sure that the bowl doesn’t touch the water.  Keeping the heat low allow the chocolate to melt, which will take about 6 minutes.  If you leave it too long the chocolate will go grainy and dry, rather than into a smooth paste, but vigorous beating with a fork should recover the situation.
4. While the chocolate is melting, beat the egg yolks in a bowl.
5. Take the chocolate off the heat and leave to cool slightly for a minute or two before mixing in the beaten egg yolks – you will see that the chocolate mix starts to thicken slightly and get a glossy appearance.
6. In a clean, dry bowl whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until they form stiff peaks.
7. Next, using a clean metal spoon to fold a tablespoon of the egg whites into the chocolate mix, using this to lift the chocolate away from the sides of the bowl.
8. Fold the rest of the egg whites into the bowl a little at a time, taking care not to lose the air out of the egg whites.
9. Pour the mixture into the prepared soufflé dish and bake on the baking sheet (a pre-heated baking sheet conducts the heat better to the base of the soufflé) for approximately 20 minutes until the soufflé is puffy and springy to touch.
10. Serve directly from the oven (this tends to be the moment of truth when soufflés collapse if left to stand or if not cooked enough).

This works really well served with pouring cream if you’re allowing a bit of dairy in your diet.

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: chocolate and orange mousse
2. Paleo kitchen experiments: chocolate mousse
3. Paleo recipes: chocolate and hazelnut pavlova

We were walking through the Lake District, following Wainwright’s Coast to Coast route from St Bee’s on the east coast as far as Kirkby Stephen on the west side of the Yorkshire Dales.  We did the rest of the route (Kirkby Stephen to Robin Hood’s Bay on the east coast) last September.  We walked for five days during which we made our way through about 88 miles.

For some reason the walking was tougher than usual.  I suspect it was because all the things going on in my life have combined with poor weather so that I’ve done almost nothing resembling cardio for several months.  Exhaustion combined with rough terrain underfoot and narrow paths meant that long stretches of time were spent concentrating on our feet and walking in single file without the usual discussions that usually accompany our walking weeks.  Instead it was a week for contemplation.

Here are some of the week’s observations and thought.

Diet

As usually happens on these weeks, we eat what food we can get our hands on which are affordable and sufficiently filling.  It means a week of rubbish, including:

• bulking up on large amount of potatoes
• servings of gluten foods (battered fish or steak pie is usually reliable for filling pub dinners while breakfasts when sleeping “in” frequently include lots of toast and cereal to get enough food),
• sometimes sugar (not just breakfast cereals but also hot puddings with custard at dinner when the meal hasn’t been filling enough). 

Dehydration on hot days also means I’ll throw back a pint of diet coke when we first reach a pub, since it is impossible to fit in sufficient water to rehydrate at the same time as trying to consume all the food needed to fill us up.

I now have 14 weeks until the next walking holiday.  Unfortunately that holiday will be in the Alps where avoiding gluten will be impossible.  We’ll be in the mountains at Alpine Huts where you take what is on offer or starve.

I wasn’t very strict with my diet in the last few weeks before holidays and subsequently felt horrible and gained some body fat but I am determined to be clean and stick to the meal plans for these 14 weeks.  Hopefully it’ll make me feel a bit better again and also improve my figure too.

Soft tissue work

We took our portable rolling kit with us (one baseball and a short stretch of plastic waste pipe for rolling legs).  We found that, compared to usual, our recovery overnight was much better than usual.  We weren’t as stiff as we might otherwise be each morning and were able to set off after breakfast without hobbling.

This has cemented the knowledge that, when you are putting your body through the wringer, ongoing soft tissue work is worth every minute you can spare for it.

Getting in the cardio

I’m going to start coming home via the work membership gym on non workout days and spending a brief bit of time on an elliptical machine during this 14 weeks stint.  I don’t want this same level of discomfort in the Alps.

Maintaining glute strength while walking

We’d had this great plan to do single leg elevated foot glute bridges each evening to ensure that our glute strength didn’t disappear like it usually does during walking holidays.  We failed.  We were just too trashed at the end of each day to start doing tiring exercises.

I’ll have to find another way to address this issue next time and I’m waiting to see what my squat workout on Wednesday tells me about my remaining glute strength.

The benefits of strong glutes for steep hills

Years ago I used to suffer from knee pain on the hills.  On one memorable mountaineering trip I had to bail after the first few days because the pain was so bad I could no longer safely attempt any ascents.

Fast-forward a few years and a lot of glute-strengthening exercises and I’ve now got minimal knee pain.  This week’s walks had some particularly tough (nd consecutive) climbs and descents and I would be lying if I didn’t confess to a little soreness.  However, every time my knees started to throb I would concentrate on “cracking a walnut between my bottom cheeks” and suddenly the pain would go again – simply by reengaging my glutes.

The pros and cons of barefooting

Due to the duration of this walk we took our boots instead of Vibrams.  However, we were very aware that the knots in the soles of our feet were worse at the end of each day as a result of the boots squeezing our feet.  I also noticed that, having now spent much of my day to day life in Vibrams, I was struggling on rough ground.  I’ve lost the knack of “balancing” in my boot on top of knobbly stones so that I went over my ankle a few times.  Perhaps I should still walk in boots sometimes to keep the skill.

At the other end of the spectrum, we received instant relief from tortuous foot pain during the final 2km of the last day’s walking when we hit the final stretch of road and took off our boots, tying them onto our backpacks and walking down the road in socks.  I hobbled for the first few paces but quickly found that the tightness across the ball of my foot loosened out and, by the end of the 2km, the knots in my left calf which had been crippling me at times since a particularly steep climb on day two, had completely gone.

What are my goals?

Finally, I started to think about my goals.  Long distance walking (endurance) and competitive powerlifting (strength) will always be opposing goals.  Over the next few months I’m going to be thinking long and hard about how I might make these work together since I would ideally like to keep both.

Related posts:

1. Powerlifting progress 2010: week forty-five (fat loss: week seven) – holiday
2. Powerlifting progress 2010: week fifty (fat loss: week twelve)
3. Powerlifting progress 2010: week eleven (holiday and active rest)

For those who don’t know what Eton Mess is, it’s a big bowlful of broken meringue pieces, whipped cream and summer fruits, all blended together.  Tastes delicious!

Paleo Eton Mess

Ingredients (makes 6):
1 can coconut milk, stored in the fridge
4 tsp ghee
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups of blackberries, strawberries and other summer fruit (I used just a cup of blackberries defrosted from my freezer collection but that was because it was mid-winter)

Directions:

1. Open up the coconut milk can.  Depending on the brand you buy, hopefully you will find it has separated.  If it has separated, spoon out the solids into a bowl (the remaining liquid is coconut water – retain this if you wish since it makes a very good workout drink, being fairly high carb).  Add the ghee and vanilla essence to these solids and whisk until the cream is starting to thicken.  If the milk hadn’t separated, add an extra few teaspoons of ghee to increase the fat percentage – you’ll probably have to whisk for longer too.  
2. Fold in the summer fruits, making sure they are spread evenly throughout the cream but making sure you don’t blend so hard that the cream all turns pink.  There’s definitely an art to this folding bit.
3. Place in the fridge for 2-3 hours for the cream to thicken up and the texture to get pudding-like and then serve up!

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: fruit pavlova
2. Paleo recipes: chocolate and hazelnut pavlova
3. Paleo recipes: beef curry

Here’s the recipe for you.

Paleo fruit pavlova

Ingredients (makes 6):
4 egg whites
1 can coconut milk, stored in the fridge
4 tsp ghee
2 tsp vanilla essence
Fruit of your choice (I used a couple of kiwi fruit, sliced and chopped and some handfuls of blackberries)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 150C and line a baking tray with greased/oiled greaseproof paper or a silicone sheet (it is really important to oil the paper otherwise these will stick).
2. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks so that they hold in the bowl if you tip it to one side.
3. Working quickly, as the whites will start to collapse very soon, spoon the egg whites into 6 heaps on the baking sheet and place into the oven, turning the oven down to 140C at the same time.
4. After 30 minutes turn the oven down further to 125C and continue baking for a further 30 minutes.
5. At the end of the cooking time turn off the oven but leave the door closed until the oven is completely cold (a good rule of thumb is to make these the night before and then leave them in the oven overnight) to prevent any moisture getting to the meringues.  Once cool, store the meringues in an airtight box to stay crisp until just before serving, although my recommendation is, if you can logistically manage it, time it to serve them as soon as the oven is cooled to prevent the risk of them getting moist.
6. To prepare the cream, open up the coconut milk can.  Depending on the brand you buy, hopefully you will find it has separated.  If it has separated, spoon out the solids into a bowl (the remaining liquid is coconut water – retain this if you wish since it makes a very good workout drink, being fairly high carb).  Add the ghee and vanilla essence to these solids and whisk until the cream is starting to thicken.  If the milk hadn’t separated, add an extra few teaspoons of ghee to increase the fat percentage – you’ll probably have to whisk for longer too.  Ideally then place it in the fridge for an hour or two during which it will thicken up a bit more.
7. When ready to serve, place a meringue on a plate, add a generous topping of cream and decorate with the fruit.  Serve immediately, before the meringue has time to go soft (and if there is any cream left over, which there is bound to be, decide if you are generous enough to add an extra spoonful to the side of the plate or if you eat it all yourself later when nobody is looking).

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: chocolate and hazelnut pavlova
2. Paleo recipes: fruit tart
3. Paleo recipes: fruit crunch

It’s my birthday today so it’s definitely a day for a pudding post.

Anyway, I was doing some experimenting and came up with this recipe for a chocolate and hazelnut pavlova.  The meringue base is definitely not as crisp as something you would get if you added sugar to the egg whites, but if you are careful with them and don’t let the air get to them before serving, they do the trick.

Paleo chocolate and hazelnut pavlova

Ingredients (makes 6):
4 egg whites
2 heaped tsp cocoa powder
1 can coconut milk, stored in the fridge
4 tsp ghee
40g dark chocolate
1 tbsp warm water
2 handfuls of chopped hazelnuts (or a large handful of hazelnuts, bashed into bits in a pestle and mortar)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 150C and line a baking tray with greased/oiled greaseproof paper or a silicone sheet (it is really important to oil the paper otherwise these will stick).
2. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks so that they hold in the bowl if you tip it to one side.
3. Sieve the cocoa powder onto the beaten egg whites, using a fine sieve to remove any lumps, and then whisk this into the egg whites.
4. Working quickly, as the whites will start to collapse very soon, spoon the egg whites into 6 heaps on the baking sheet and place into the oven, turning the oven down to 140C at the same time.
5. After 30 minutes turn the oven down further to 125C and continue baking for a further 30 minutes.
6. At the end of the cooking time turn off the oven but leave the door closed until the oven is completely cold (a good rule of thumb is to make these the night before and then leave them in the oven overnight) to prevent any moisture getting to the meringues.  Once cool, store the meringues in an airtight box to stay crisp until just before serving, although my recommendation is, if you can logistically manage it, time it to serve them as soon as the oven is cooled to prevent the risk of them getting moist.
7. To prepare the cream, break up the chocolate into pieces and place it in a bowl with the warm water over a pan of gently simmering water.  Keep an eye on this as the chocolate melts as it should only take 4-5 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, open up the coconut milk can.  Depending on the brand you buy, hopefully you will find it has separated.  If it has separated, spoon out the solids into a bowl (the remaining liquid is coconut water – retain this if you wish since it makes a very good workout drink, being fairly high carb).  Add the ghee to these solids and whisk until the cream is starting to thicken.  If the milk hadn’t separated, add an extra few teaspoons of ghee to increase the fat percentage – you’ll probably have to whisk for longer too.
9. Add the melted chocolate and most of the hazelnuts (reserving a few hazelnuts to decorate) to the cream and fold into the mix before giving it a final quick whip.  Ideally, place in the fridge for an hour or two during which it will thicken up a bit more.
10. When ready to serve, place a meringue on a plate, add a generous topping of chocolate cream and sprinkle with some chopped hazelnuts and a dusting of cocoa powder.  Serve immediately, before the meringue has time to go soft (and if there is any cream left over, which there is bound to be, decide if you are generous enough to add an extra spoonful to the side of the plate or if you eat it all yourself later when nobody is looking).

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: hot chocolate rum soufflé
2. Paleo recipes: fruit pavlova
3. Paleo recipes: chocolate and orange mousse

While we’re in the middle of winter now, this recipe is far more like a normal baked banana recipe and, in the summer months, is the sort of thing you can put on the BBQ once you’ve finished cooking up the meat where it can gently bake away in its foil pack until you are ready for some pudding.

The reality is that you can put anything in with bananas.  In the one for the picture I used pineapple (as noted in the recipe) and I added a handful of pomegranate seeds, because I happened to have picked up a pomegranate going cheaply at the shops.  For the fruit puree I used pineapple because it was all I could get hold of at the time but apricot has a much more distinctive flavour and would therefore be a better choice if you can get them.

Baked banana

Ingredients (serves 6):
6 bananas
1 large tin pineapple or apricot pieces
Honey (optional – to taste)
Zest of an orange
6 squares plain dark chocolate

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Cut 6 pieces of foil large enough to create an envelope big enough to hold one banana with fruit and place a banana, sliced in half down its length, on the centre of each piece of foil.
3. Drain the apricots or pineapple and blitz into a puree using a food processor or hand blender.  At this point you need to decide how much of a sweet tooth you have.  I didn’t add any honey, but if you like your food sweet then add up to 1 tablespoon of honey to the fruit puree and mix it in well.
4. Spoon the puree over the bananas, allowing about 1tbsp per banana (dependent on the size of the bananas and the amount of fruit puree).  Follow this with a sprinkle of 2 tsp orange zest over each banana.
5. Finally, finely chop the chocolate squares into shavings and sprinkle this over the top of the banana and fruit mix.
6. Bring the edges of the foil up and fold together to seal each banana into a neat package.  Place these packages on a baking tray in the oven (or lay them on the BBQ shelf) for 15-20 minutes until the banana is soft.

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: easy baked bananas with orange zest yoghurt
2. Paleo recipes: baked eggs with spinach and mushrooms
3. Paleo recipes: almond banana pancakes

One of the few comfort foodstuffs that I have really missed since I moved to a paleo diet is custard.  A bowlful of custard, often with nothing added, is one of the few foods which last through from childhood as a safety blanket for me.  When times were tough or I was feeling sick, unhappy or in need of some general homeliness I would have a bowlful of custard.  When I first left home one of the things that Mum made sure was in the very first grocery shop I did, which she helped me with since I was stocking up with all the necessities for the cupboard, was a tin of custard powder for emergencies.

Last year I was on a quest to find a custard recipe which I could use after moving to the paleo diet.  The best I managed to find at the time was recipes for baked egg custards which was very tasty but it wasn’t the comfort food I was after.  A year later and my skills in the kitchen have improved significantly so I decided to have another go.

Custard is essentially warmed milk or cream thickened with the use of egg yolks and sweetened with sugar.  Generally it also contains cornflour (also known as corn starch) but a detailed read of the “Lumpy Custard” section of a BBC Open University page which goes into the science of how the egg thickens the milk explains that the cornflour is binding with the water in the milk in a different way to create a gel which overlaps with the egg proteins as they bind and helps prevent the custard going lumpy.

I was certain that people must have made custard before they started using cornflour.  Sure enough, some further hunting established that there are people out there who make custard without cornflour (although they still use sugar) so I gave it a go.  First with milk, then with coconut milk (see second recipe, further on).

Paleo custard

Custard with dairy

Ingredients:
1 pint full fat milk and double cream (see comments at end)
4 egg yolks
1-2 tsp vanilla essence (to taste)
1-4 tsp honey (to taste)

Directions:

1. Put the milk and cream into a small pan over a low heat with the vanilla essence and warm it until it is reasonably hot to the touch when you dip your (clean) finger in the pan.  Don’t let the milk boil and keep it moving so that it doesn’t stick, burn on the bottom or develop a skin.
2. Beat the egg yolks together in a bowl and, once the milk is warm, slowly pour the milk onto the yolks a little at a time, beating the yolks in with the milk all the time.
3. Once all the milk is mixed in with the egg and they are completely combined return the milk mixture back to the pan and place over a very low heat (I use the lowest heat setting I can get out of my smallest gas ring) and heat the mix stirring continuously.
4. It is important not to get impatient and turn the heat up at this point, instead letting it heat up slowly.  Don’t let it reach simmering point as that will be too much heat and the texture will go grainy.
5. As it thickens add a little honey, tasting it as you add the honey until it reaches the desired sweetness.  I only added 1 tsp but neither of us has a very sweet tooth.  I expect that many people would prefer a little more.  Once you know how much honey you like you may find it easier to add the honey with the vanilla essence in future since you’ll wish you had three hands to spoon in honey while continuing to stir the custard to stop it turning lumpy.
6. Once the custard is at your preferred thickness (a good test is to lift the spoon out of the pan and run a finger down the centre of the spoon leaving a line with clean edges) remove it from the heat and serve.
7. If you want to serve it cold then I am assured that a sheet of greaseproof paper or cling film laid over the surface of the custard will stop it from forming a skin – it didn’t last long enough in our house to find out!

Cream or milk?

The essence of the recipe is that you want 1 pint of dairy liquid.  Some of the more decadent chefs use an entire pint of double cream but I would find that a bit too rich when I am hoping to use it as a comfort food.  Using all double cream though may be a good idea if you want to use the custard as part of a larger pudding, such as cold custard in a trifle.  Alternatively you could use a pint of full fat milk with no cream.  This is definitely cheaper but misses a bit of the luxury flavour of custard.

Most people will find a happy mix of the two which gives the right ratio of creamy flavour to richness that they prefer.  My choice is three-quarters of a pint of full fat milk and a quarter of cream to just give it that creamy edge.

Custard with coconut milk

Ingredients:
1 can coconut milk
6-7 egg yolks
1-2 tsp vanilla essence (to taste)

Directions:

1. Put the coconut milk into a small pan over a low heat with the vanilla essence and warm it until it is reasonably warm to the touch when you dip your (clean) finger in the pan and is steaming a little.  Don’t let the milk boil (coconut milk can curdle very easily) and keep it moving so that it doesn’t stick, burn on the bottom or develop a skin.
2. Beat the egg yolks together in a bowl and, once the milk is warm, slowly pour the milk onto the yolks a little at a time, beating the yolks in with the milk all the time.
3. Once all the milk is mixed in with the egg and they are completely combined return the milk mixture back to the pan and place over a very low heat (I use the lowest heat setting I can get out of my smallest gas ring) and heat the mix stirring continuously.
4. It is important not to get impatient and turn the heat up at this point, instead letting it heat up slowly.  Don’t let it reach simmering point as that will be too much heat and the texture will go grainy.  This is where I did things differently.  Coconut milk takes a lot longer to turn so in the end I stopped stirring and left it alone, stirring infrequently.  After a while it got really thick but had some definite lumps, most of which I could beat out of it again.
5. Once the custard is at your preferred thickness remove it from the heat and serve.  If it has got some big lumps in it then strain through a seive first.

Texture

When I tried this I accidentally overheated it because we like our custard thick and it turned out that the total number of egg yolks recommended by everyone else just didn’t do the trick (I ended up having to add extra egg yolk when the custard overheated and I established that it wasn’t going to get any thicker) but until that point it was thickening nicely and the texture was smooth.  It’s worth noting though that, despite the slightly grainy appearance, it still tasted fantastic and was perfectly edible.

As I said earlier, just remember that this isn’t a process to rush.  You need to take your time to get it right.  I found that it made for some very Zen time in the kitchen as I stood at the stove gently stirring my custard not daring to look away, instead taking a rare moment for some peaceful contemplation.

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: custard
2. Paleo recipes: chocolate and orange mousse
3. Paleo recipes: hot chocolate rum soufflé

The orange zest yoghurt is a nice twist on plain yoghurt for serving up with puddings if you are following a paleo diet with yoghurt but no other dairy products included.

Easy baked banana with orange zest yoghurt

Ingredients:
Bananas (1 per person)
500g plain yoghurt (scale this and the following ingredients down as desired)
Zest of 1 orange
½ tbsp orange juice
1½ tsp vanilla essence

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Place the bananas on a baking sheet in their skins and bake for 20-25 minutes until the skins are completely blackened but the skins have not split.
3. Meanwhile put the yoghurt, orange zest, orange juice and vanilla into a bowl and thoroughly mix.
4. Leave the yoghurt to stand in a warm place (but not hot) for about half an hour to thicken up a little.
5. Once the bananas are ready to serve place each banana on a plate.  For a really artistic serving, split the skin along the inside edge and drizzle a couple of spoonfuls of yoghurt over the top.

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: baked bananas
2. Paleo recipes: chocolate and orange mousse
3. Paleo recipes: carrots with cumin and orange