yummiest banana bread

okay, okay, you got me.  i'm writing this post for mainly selfish reasons.  this is my very favorite banana bread recipe and i need to record it once and for all so that i won't have to keep bugging my aunt and cousins for it every time my bananas get brown.  i know that everyone seems to have a family favorite banana bread recipe, but if you're ever in the market to shop around for a new one, i think your search might just end here!  there's nothing particularly healthy about this version (although i do use the 50/50 white and wheat flour to make myself feel better), but it's also amazingly moist without being greasy.  yum!  

without further adieu, i give you aunt pat's most amazing banana bread...

1 2/3 c flour

1 t baking soda

1/2 c butter

1 c sugar

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

1 c mashed bananas (i usually use 3 over-ripe bananas, which is probably a little more than a cup)

1/2 c sour cream

preheat oven to 350.  cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in mixer.  mix in banana.  alternate adding baking soda/flour combination and sour cream.  bake 1 hr.

pancakes!

i am now in full LSAT studying/law school applying mode, and although 4 years have passed since i left college, i have apparently not lost my amazing talent for finding all sorts of cooking and cleaning projects to help me procrastinate from doing what's most important to my future. ::sigh:: on the brighter side, the good news is that mike and i will be eating awfully well and enjoying life in a sparkling clean apartment for the next few months!! :-)

tonight at 9 pm i decided it would be a good idea to make myself some healthy pancakes to take to work this week for breakfast, and make pancakes i did. i learned a few interesting cooking tricks along the way, so i thought i'd share.

Oatmeal Brown Sugar Pancakes
(look, Kira, you can enjoy oatmeal for breakfast without the mushy texture!)

1/2 c. plus 2 tbsp quick-cooking oats
1/2 c. whole flour
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 c. buttermilk

in a small bowl, combine the oats, flours, baking soda, salt and sugar. in another small bowl, beat the egg, oil and buttermilk. stir into dry ingredients until just moistened. pour batter by 1/3 cupful onto a greased hot griddle. turn when bubbles form on top and cook until the second side is golden brown. makes approx 10 pancakes (which i'm not sure i agree with - my batch turned out maybe 7 or so)

and now for the cooking tricks!!

1.) apparently, if you don't have buttermilk, you can substitute by adding 1 tbsp. lemon juice to your regular milk and letting it sit for a few minutes. i was intrigued by this idea since i'm constantly buying buttermilk to use in small quantities and then the rest usually goes bad in my fridge. i tried this lemon juice trick in this pancake recipe, and while i didn't notice a particularly buttermilky flavor (man do these pancakes taste healthy!), i didn't notice a particularly yucky flavor either. i'm thinking i'll give the lemon juice a try in a few more recipes before making up my mind on whether this is a good idea.

2.) if you're like me and never able to use an open bag of brown sugar before it starts to dry up and become crusty, i can confirm that tossing a marshmallow into the bag after opening will keep the sugar nice and moist! hooray! i've heard that a piece of bread works too, but that kind of grosses me out.

better than MCL sauteed apples

I've never been to MCL, but from the way Kira describes it, I can imagine it would be a place where they might offer cinnamon-y apples as an option for dessert. I'm also imagining that their apples might resemble the usual institutional apple-pie filling type served at buffets, and that they'd be kinda thick in consistency and super sweet. Ick.

A few weeks ago, I was looking for a recipe for sauteed apples to use on top of a dutch pancake I was making. When I googled sauteed apples, this was the first recipe that came up (thank you, allrecipes.com!) and I'm so very glad it did! I absolutely loved the way these turned out in texture, in consistency and in flavor! They were so delicious and perfect that they even inspired me to wake up 15 min earlier every day so I could make oatmeal w/these apples and raisins. Impressive!

There's not much to this recipe, but if you're like me and haven't ever sauteed apples before, it's a great first-timer recipe. I had an idea of how sauteeing apples might go, but I would have never been able to guess the proportions of sugar/cinnamon/butter or the need to boil the apples toward the end to achieve the best texture!

Without further adieu, I give you allrecipes.com's recipe for sauteed apples...

1/4 cup butter
4 large tart apples - peeled, cored and sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 teaspoons cornstarch (I used flour because I couldn't find my cornstarch and it worked fine, you just have to make a roux with the butter and flour in order to cook the flour before the apples are added so that you don't end up with a flour-y taste)
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS
In a large skillet or saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; add apples. Cook, stirring constantly, until apples are almost tender, about 6 to 7 minutes.
Dissolve cornstarch in water; add to skillet. Stir in brown sugar and cinnamon. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and serve warm.

world's yummiest granola bars

My sister in law makes the yummiest granola bars EVER. I love this recipe because is super easy, fast and you get to play with the flavorings and textures!! I always seem to have the hardest time finding a store-bought brand that I like because if the texture is great, I'll hate the flavor combination, or vice versa. With these granola bars, you get to decide how crunchy, chewy, sweet, healthy or junky they'll turn out! Here's the base recipe, with notes on ways you can play around to get different results:

4 c quick oats (do not even THINK about using old fashioned oats. you will not be pleased with the outcome! you can, on the other hand, consider substituting a cup or two of a cereal... the finer the texture of the cereal, the better this works.)
1 1/2 c chopped whatever (nuts, raisins, sunflower seeds, chocolate...)
1/2 c firmly packed brown sugar (original recipe calls for 1 whole cup, but that was way too sweet for me since I'm almost always using chocolate or raisins in my chopped whatever)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 melted butter/canola oil mix (you can play around with this as well, but I find that I like to melt a little less than 1/2 c butter in a glass measuring cup, then pour canola oil in until it reaches 3/4 c. more butter makes the bars have a richer taste, obviously)
1/2 c honey (if you pour in the butter/oil mix first and then reuse the same measuring cup for the honey, the honey will pour right out! much better than having to wait for hours for it to drip into the bowl)
1 tsp vanilla extract (don't worry, Kira, you can't taste a thing! ;-) )

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9x13 glass pan. Mix all of the above ingredients until incorporated and press into pan. Bake about 20 min until golden brown (longer baking will be crunchier, shorter baking will be chewier). Let cool completely before cutting. I usually wrap each individual granola bar in plastic wrap so they're convenient to store and stay fresher. Yum!!

Breakfast Stars

Okay, so it's been awhile since I posted anything on this blog. Lisae, my apologies. I am going to start posting recipes again, though, because I have finally learned how to balance my life (meaning work and Zumba...that's not really too much of a life now that I think about it) and so I am sort of cooking again!

I made these last week for a breakfast meeting that Ryan had at our house with some work colleagues. I also brought some in for my group. These are great to make for any breakfast get-together and they always impress because they are (1) tasty and (2) ADORABLE. I didn't think to take a picture of them when I made them last, but hey...with a name like Breakfast Stars, how could they NOT be cute?

BREAKFAST STARS

Ingredients:

1 package won ton wrappers
1 lb sweet Italian or regular sausage
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
3 green onions, sliced up really really small
2 C colby cheese, shredded
1/2 C ranch (or lite ranch, I guess) dressing

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Spray mini muffin tins with cooking spray. Arrange won ton wrappers in mini muffin tins, folding them so that they look sort of like stars but still have room to scoop filling in the center. Bake for 5ish minutes until they are slightly browned and beginning to get crispy.

While the won ton wrappers are baking, cook sausage until no longer pink and drain. Mix sausage with the rest of the ingredients. Scoop filling into won ton wrappers - I used a teaspoon - and bake for 6-7 minutes until mixture inside is bubbly.

Serve as quickly as possible! These are good cold even hours later, but let's just say that they are much better when the won ton wrappers are still crispy. Mmmmmm....

Note: If you are lazy (like me) you can always make the sausage/veggie/cheese/ranch/fatty goodness mixture the night before and refrigerate!