Banana Banana Bread

Last Friday I noticed that I had 4 sad-looking bananas on my counter. They were too far gone for me to eat them in cereal, so I thought, YES, I have an excuse to make banana bread! So I looked online for a recipe, and found one pretty quickly that even used stuff I already had in my pantry! Score! This recipe is pretty fool-proof. I did add a teaspoon of vanilla and some chopped-up walnuts and pecans. This bread is so moist and flavorful. I had 2 slices (what?) and then cut the loaf in half to give to two neighbors. I can’t have food like this in my house- too dangerous. This will be my go-to recipe for banana bread from now on.

rating: 9

Banana Banana Bread

(from www.allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

 

Mayonnaise Muffins (aka Quick Rolls)

I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for months but I kept forgetting about it. I got it from one of my favorite cooking blogs: http://www.dingybroad.com/. The author of that blog, Stacy, and her stepson Joel, Jr. are avid readers of MY blog as well! I halved this recipe, since I knew we wouldn’t eat 12 rolls. They seemed really dry when I was mixing the dough (and I am NOT a baker), so I added a little more milk (plain soymilk) and a little more mayo. They just didn’t look right to me when I plopped them in the muffin tins, but I crossed my fingers and shut the oven door. The verdict? These were actually better than they looked! They had a great texture, and weren’t tough at all. We each had one, and I saved them in some tin foil and microwaved them the next night for dinner as well. With these we had some Quorn cutlets, some leftover cole slaw, some Potato Plops (from the same blog- try them! you will be amazed!), and a green salad.

rating: 8

http://www.dingybroad.com/?p=71

Cheesy Drop Biscuits

I made some Chickpea & Spinach soup last night (made it back in Nov. 08- go look!), and I wanted to make something bready to go with it. This recipe comes from another blog I look at frequently: http://mommywhatsfordinner.blogspot.com/. I find alot of recipes and inspiration there! I actually forgot about making these biscuits until the last minute. The soup was ready, so I scrambled to get all the ingredients together. But, before I knew it, ta-da! Biscuits! I wasn’t really sure how I needed to “form them into biscuits”, so a couple of them turned out kinda big. But you know what? They’re good! They had a really good texture and taste (and Toby ate two!). These will go into my recipe box!

rating: 9

http://mommywhatsfordinner.blogspot.com/2009/01/cheesy-drop-biscuits.html

Country Pumpkin Muffins

I am taking a little break this week, but I wanted to share one new recipe with you. I made IHOP’s pumpkin pancakes over the weekend (from a cookbook full of famous restaurant recipes that my mom gave me), and I had almost a whole can of pumpkin left over. That pancake recipes only calls for 3 TBSP of pumpkin! Anywho, so I found this recipe, and it was a good choice. First of all, I had exactly enough pumpkin for it. Second, it’s GOOD! I did omit the raisins because of Toby’s weird “no raisins” rule.  These were so easy- you just mix the wet ingredients together, then mix the dry ingredients together, then mix them ALL together, then add the nuts. This recipe gave me 24 muffins. In the comment section after the recipe, you can see what other people did to *tweak* this recipe, like subbing half brown sugar for white, etc. Try these! And see you next Monday!

rating: 8.5

http://tinyurl.com/ba96fh

Monkey Bread

This is what I make for breakfast every Christmas morning (I say every- for the last two!). It’s so easy, and it’s nice to serve with other stuff, or just have it on a plate and people can pinch off a piece every time they walk by. There’s no set amount of sugar or cinnamon to use- you just use whatever tastes good to you. It takes about 30 minutes to cook, so this can be cooking while you are opening gifts and then voila! Also, I add a sprinkling of chopped nuts to mine (walnuts I think). I think this theoretically makes it Gorilla Bread.

rating: 9

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,174,130183-253199,00.html

Sour Cream Biscuits with Chives

So this was my first time ever making biscuits from scratch. And yeah, not so good. The taste is great, but they didn’t rise one bit! They are exactly the same size as when I put them in the oven! I googled this, and it may be that I kneaded the dough too much. Oh well. They were pretty easy to make, so I might try them again in a while and not knead them so much.

rating: 8 (for taste)

Sour Cream Biscuits with Chives
(from the winter 02 issue of Veggie Life Magazine)

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup nonfat sour cream
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup chopped chives

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and lightly oil a baking sheet. In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Make a well in the center and add dour cream, oil, and chives. Stir until just combined.
2. Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead briefly, about 30 seconds. Pat or roll out dough into 3/4″ thickness. Cut biscuits into desired shape, and bake until golden, 12-15 minutes.