Banana Bread

Yummy yummy Banana Bread.  This is a healthified version that my son and husband love.  A slice of this for breakfast is a great way to start the day, and it functions as a delicious dessert as well.

1/3 olive oil or melted butter
3-4 overripe bananas
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar (optional)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
Optional mix in
1/2 cup slivered almonds (or other nut/seed) or
1/2 cup blueberries

Preheat oven 350
Combine wet ingredients in large bowl...whisk together dry ingredients and combine into wet.  Once well mixed fold in your mix in. 

Pour into well greased loaf pan and bake for 1 hour or till toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool on wire rack.


I recommend doubling and making more, this will go quick and freezes beautifully.  You can alter each one with different mix ins, I've used blueberries (great success), strawberries (not as pretty but still tasty), almonds, pecans, flax seed, walnuts, etc.  I often top with either some sort of crushed nuts or a cinnamon sugar mixture to give a little bit of a crust. 

This recipe is a basic quickbread, you can switch out the banana for carrot or pumpkin or apple or zucchini (approx a cup of puree or equivalent), If using the veggies, more sugar may be needed.  For the pictured loaves of bread, I omitted sugar in the recipe as the bananas were VERY ripe, and just gave it a light cinnamon/sugar dusting on top. 

Amazon Cards

I don't usually post stuff like this, but a girl's gotta try and make some cash.

I've recently started using a site where I can get Amazon gift cards for clicking on sites and completing offers, shopping, etc via instaGC!.

Feel free to join me on this internet journey!  Maybe we'll make some Christmas cash!

http://www.instagc.com/amazon.com/311746

Happy Shopping Y'all!

Caesar Dressing

Quick, easy, and guilt-free!

Now, I don't feel much guilt about food anyway, I'm a foodie-but I do try to make things as healthy as possible.  For this recipe, there was a little mayonaise, but very little and I used an olive-oil based mayo (which is what I tend to keep around when we don't have veganaise). 


1/4 cup of low fat Mayo or Veganaise
1/2 cup of plain yogurt. 
2 tsp anchovy paste
2 tsp spicy mustard
2 -3 tbls grated Parmesean cheese
Juice from half a lemon

Freshly ground pepper

Whisk together ingredients and put on your favorite greens for a yummy salad.

For dinner tonight, I seasoned chicken breasts which were given a quick pan fry, then sliced to top a bed of romaine, carrot, and cucumber then topped with the yummy Caesar dressing.  Guiltless and DELICIOUS! 

Enjoy!

April Canning

Who's excited for canning season to begin!?

First round this year, salsa (got bulk Roma tomatoes and peppers from the restraunt supply store) and pickled sweet peppers. 

The peppers brining liquid:

peppercorns, mustard seed, garlic clove, red pepper flake, salt, water/vinegar

Homemade Crackers!

These have been a huge hit...they won't be quite as crisp as store bought, but you get to control the salt, fat, and quality of ingredients.

Preheat oven to 400

I used the dough blade in my food processor to make this much easier, I imagine a stand mixer would work as well.

1-1 1/2 cup of any fine grain flour oat, AP, whole wheat, corn, etc
2-3 tbls oil 3+ tbls of water
salt and other other spices

Pulse till it comes together in a ball, add water or flour as needed to get the consistency. Roll super thin, approximately 1/8th of a inch and either cut into shapes or cook as is then break apart once baked. 

I made three varieties, one with garlic powder, onion powder and oregano, one with basil and tomato powder, and one with a splash of vanilla, sugar, and less salt (ala wheat thins).

The smaller the piece the less time it takes to bake. I baked them off in sheets and broke apart, they took about 20 minutes in this format, if you cut into shapes, they should take less time so start at about 10 minutes there. The less water/oil in the recipe the crisper a cracker you're going to get since it'll be a drier dough. Pictures to come soon.