Notting Hill Carnival was in its 50th year this year and me and my friends went to celebrate this bank holiday in London. The largest festival celebration of its kind in Europe, we danced all day in street crowds, following the procession through the packed streets of West London. The atmosphere was amazing, and the performers with their feather plumes and jewel-coloured costumes even better, but it was the smell of ridiculously good traditional Caribbean street food from all the stalls that made me want to eat everything that we passed.
The only slight obstacle we faced was the weather… which turned out to be torrential rain in true British Style. It poured. All day. Like I was soaked through to my underwear within the first hour all day. My bright yellow three quid pac-a-mac from Primark didn’t stand a chance. We ended up stopping at a fancy oyster bar/the only bar near and open in Notting Hill mid-afternoon, and a ridiculous amount of money later (and a bigger alcohol jacket), decided to brave the rain again.
It was heading back in the evening that we managed to miss one of our change over stops on the train. Cue very sleepy girls getting home late. This meant that not only did Tuesday morning call for dry knickers but serious recovery, comfort food.
This nutty, oat vegan crumble with toasted coconut was ideal.
I’ve had my eye on this Skillet Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble recipe from McKel at Nutrition Stripped for ages but it was the crumb topping that I saw in Julie’s Apple and Pear Crisp recipe that made me want to whip up something the most.
The topping is always the best part of a crumble, and this one is filled not only with amazing plant-protein from the nuts and tonnes of fibre from the crispy oats, but healthy fats and all the goodness of coconut too. I used part of the ingredient list but omitted almond meal and added in coconut oil and coconut flakes for a bit of tropical oompf. I had pecans on hand so I threw some of those in too. This ingredient list can be so easily altered – change the fruit to what is in season or to whatever you happen to have in the fruit bowl.
Your entire kitchen ends up smelling amazing and this recipe uses only simple, whole ingredients. It also only takes 10 minutes max to prepare. I think the only thing that would have made this even better was some coconut ice-cream. Comfort food has never been so delicious (or so healthy…).
- For the topping: 1 1/2 cups gluten free oats
- 1 cup of nuts (I used mixed pecans, walnuts and peanuts)
- 3 tbsp coconut oil
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp organic vanilla extract (optional)
- 2 tbsp coconut flakes
- For the fruit filling: 3 large ripe bananas
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
- 1 tbsp coconut flakes
- Preheat your oven to 180C.
- Add the nuts to a food processor and blend until a flour forms (roughly 2 minutes).
- Combine the nuts and oats in a bowl.
- Place the maple syrup, coconut oil, vanilla extract and the cinnamon into a saucepan and gently heat, until the coconut oil has become liquid and all of the ingredients are mixed together.
- Take off the heat and pour over the nutty oat crumb mixture until it is completely coated.
- Grab a baking dish and slice up the bananas before placing them evenly over the bottom of the dish and then adding the blueberries on top.
- Sprinkle the fruit with some of the coconut flakes and then add your crumble top, layering it over the fruit evenly.
- Sprinkle some coconut flakes on top.
- Place in the oven for roughly 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and you can see the blueberries are gooey and burst at the bottom.
- Take out and enjoy!
