Amazing banana bread

I know, I know, I am totally biased, but this stuff is good. Really, really good. It does take more time than most things I make, but you know you want some. When I have bananas that are too soft to eat, I wait for them to turn all brown and throw them in the freezer. Then, when I have 3 or 4, I make this. I know some of you will leave out the coffee, but if you are willing to try a fake flavoring, I would recommend that because it gives the bread a much richer flavor. You can decrease the butter to 3 tablespoons, or you could up it to 6 tablespoons if you're feeling wild and too skinny. The original had 1/3 cup. This isn't quite as low-fat as most of my stuff, but I think it's worth it. If you want more nutritious, last time I used half wheat flour (with brewed coffee) and it worked really well.

Banana bread!!
Serves: 1 if you can keep it away from others! Ok, should be about 8 real-people servings, and 16 if you go by what most recipes say it should be.

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1/4 cup melted butter

1 tablespoon instant coffee granules*

3/4 cup sugar (reduce to 2/3 cup if using sweetened coconut)

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

* instead of instant granules, you can use 3 ounces of STRONG brewed coffee - add 2 tablespoons of flour if you do this.

- Preheat the oven to 350°F

- Mash bananas in a large bowl, then mix in butter and coffee.

- Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla.

- Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

- If you have a food processor, process the coconut until it is completely chopped up.

- Add the flour and coconut to the bowl and mix until fully incorporated.

- Pour mixture into a greased 4x8 inch loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

- Cool on a rack if you are patient, but I always cut into it while hot to enjoy it immediately.

Nutrition info for 1/8 of recipe (using 1/4 cup of butter): Fat - 8.4g Cal - 275 Carbs - 48 Protein - 3.8g

I sort of feel bad after putting this nutrition info, but then again Emeril's recipe, here, has 28.7g of fat and 508 calories for 1/8 of it! I think his is going to be an outlier on the heavy side, though.

Corn and bean salad

I really like making things that can be changed to make it seem new or different. I sometimes call my meals "creations" because there often isn't a good name, I just throw things together. Corn and bean salad is something that you can do a lot of different things with. Here, I added couscous to make it a main dish. I admit that it makes it similar to the southwest couscous I already posted, but I often leave the couscous out. If you want, you could throw in some meat - chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, whatever. One time I had avocado that I chopped up. Hard to go wrong, really, which is nice to use up whatever you have.

Corn and bean salad
Serves: 4-6 Cook time: about 15 minutes


1/2 cup couscous
1/2 cup water

1 bell pepper, chopped into small pieces
1 (15 oz) can black beans
1 cup frozen corn
1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp tabasco

- In a small pot, bring water to a boil. Once reached, turn off, add couscous, cover, and remove from heat. Let sit for 5 minutes.
- While couscous is sitting, chop bell pepper, drain beans, and put them into a large bowl with the corn.
- Once couscous is done, stir it into the bowl.
- Sprinkle spices over the top and stir in. Eat immediately or wait and let the flavors blend.

Satisfying hot chocolate

I've heard a lot of times that you should give in to your cravings a little, because if you don't, then you will just keep having the craving and eat too much of things you don't want. I have no idea if it's actually true, but I like the idea. A good, rich, satisfying hot chocolate from Starbucks or another coffee shop could set you back $4 and 10 grams of fat (without the whipped topping, of course!) You could always go with a packet from the store, but it just isn't the same at all. My solution? A small, but very tasty, drink. If you use evaporated milk, it's really thick and so you feel like you're drinking something really indulgent, but it's not. I have been using Brown & Haley drinking chocolate to make this, but good chocolate chips (guittard, ghiradelli, or better) should work well. If all you have is hershey's or a cheap store brand, personally I'd save those for cookies and reach for the powdered cocoa instead. I don't think it'll incorporate properly and you'll be left with gritty waxy bits in the bottom of your cup. The other weekend we had it with Apple Oven Pancake, topped with chocolate frozen yogurt and toasted blanched almonds.


Satisfying hot chocolate
Serves: 2 Cook time: 5-8 min

One 6oz can fat-free evaporated milk (2/3 cup)
1/4 cup good chocolate

- In a small saucepan, heat the milk over medium heat until warm, about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add in the chocolate, stirring constantly until the chocolate is completely melted and the liquid is hot. It should steam a little, but you don't want it to boil because it can change the taste and texture of the milk.
- I serve this in 3-oz espresso cups. They will be filled to the brim, which always feels better than a big cup with hardly anything in it.


Nutrition info: I'll update this if I figure out how many chocolate chips are in 1/4 cup, but I think it should be about 3-4 grams of fat and maybe 130 calories with 5 grams of protein (yay, milk!) for half of this recipe.

Grilled pizza on a whole wheat crust

The way that we did this, it was really quick. We had some friends over and grilled a lot of food. After everything else was done, but while the coals were still hot, we threw on two chicken breasts that we had no intention of eating that day. If somebody had decided they were still hungry, they could have eaten them, but everyone was stuffed before the chicken was cooked. So, now we have grilled chicken and left-over grilled veggies. Stir up some quick pizza crust and - voila! - tasty, healthy pizza. The crust recipe is originally from here, I didn't change it at all. It's that good. Add spices if you like.

You can let it rise, or use it immediately; I've done it both ways, and it's always good. If you want to make it go even faster, put the crust into a pan, cook it for about 5 minutes while you finish getting the toppings ready, top with veggies/meat, cook 5-10 minutes, top with cheese, cook about 5 minutes until cheese is melted.

Whole Wheat pizza crust
Serves: 8 Prep & cook time: 20-25 min. (just the crust)

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 package active dry yeast/instant yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup hot tap water (120 - 125°F)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon honey or granulated sugar

- Preheat oven to 425°F
- To prepare pizza dough, stir whole wheat flour; lightly spoon into a measuring cup and level flour.
- In large mixing bowl, combine whole wheat flour, yeast and salt. Blend in water, oil and honey or sugar. Stir by hand vigorously until all ingredients are well mixed; about 3 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise to desired size.
- Place dough in greased 15 x 10 x 1-inch jelly-roll pan or 12 to 14-inch pizza pan. Press dough to cover bottom of pan and up sides to form a rim.
- Add pizza sauce of your choice and your favorite pizza toppings; bake in oven 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and toppings are done.

Nutrition: One slice of crust only provides approximately: 146 calories, 5 g protein, 27 g carbohydrates, 4 g fiber, 2 g fat (0 g saturated), 0 mg cholesterol, 37 mcg folate, 2 mg iron and 219 mg sodium.

Potato Salad

I really like potato salad. I usually put lots of mustard in mine. I really like mustard. It's pretty amazing that this one didn't have any. But the mayonnaise definitely isn't so great. Dan saw a recipe video that he thought looked good on CL (Cooking Light, I'm tired of typing it out!) . They used reduced-fat mayo and fat-free sour cream, but I don't like any mayo and fat-free tends to get weird. We went for miracle whip & plain yogurt. I am actually not going to link to it, because after looking at it again, the only things in common are potato, pepper and celery. You can see that we used red potatoes with the skin on, they hold together really well after cooking, but any kind works. I bet adding some egg would be nice if you like that. Interestingly, our version came out with lower fat & cal than the CL one, but the same amount of potato and servings.

Tater Salad
Serves: 4-5 Time: 30 min

Salad:
4 cups cubed potato (about 1 1/3 lbs)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped dill pickle
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery

Dressing:
2 Tbs salad dressing
1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp dill
1/2 tsp parsley

- Start with the potatoes! Put a pot of water on to boil before you begin to cube them. When it comes to a boil, add potatoes. Reduce heat, simmer about 9 minutes or until fork goes in easily. After done, throw them in ice water if you want to cool them faster. If not, just drain.
- While the potatoes are cooking, chop up your vegetables.
- While potatoes cooking/cooling, mix up dressing ingredients in a large bowl. Taste it! Add more spices if you like.
- When potatoes are cool, add them and the vegetables to the bowl, toss well to coat them.

Nutrition info (1/5 of recipe): Cal: 95 Fat: 2.5g Carbs: 15.9 Protein: 2.9g

New links

I've been collecting links to other blogs for a while. You will see the result in the sidebar now. I am not trying to be exhaustive, of course, because that would be thousands. I am planning on linking to bloggers whose recipes I have actually used myself, even if they weren't featured here. Also, they have to be related to part of our goals here, preferably at least two - easy, cheap, and healthy. I know that "healthy" can sort of vary, depending on their own goal, but usually the focus of the blogs are pretty obvious. Enjoy!

Cocoa Almonds

We went to a waterpark last weekend, so we were in the grocery store looking for treats and something caught my eye: cocoa roast almonds. They looked delicious. But, they were about $8 for 11 oz, and I still had over 2 lbs of plain almonds at home. So, like any self-respecting baker girl, I left them on the shelf and went straight to the computer when I got home to figure out how to make them myself! I found a promising-looking recipe on a low-carb site here, but the portions are quite off to me. (The basic idea is what I went with.) I ended up doing it in two batches to make them not touch as much, but it would work in one batch, you'd just have to break it apart more after.

*Update 7/12*: I bought some of these today because they were like $4 at Target, and we vote that mine are better. Theirs have a thinner coating and, according to Dan, are "more crunchable" but you can taste the splenda, which isn't my favorite.

*Update 8/17*: We finally finished eating the store-bought ones. Mine were gone in a week. Theirs in over a month. Mine are definitely better.


Cocoa Almonds
Serves: 8 Time: about 25 min.

2 cups whole almonds
1 egg white
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa

- Preheat oven to 325. In a medium bowl, fluff the egg white with a fork until it is nice and frothy (like soap suds - takes 1-2 minutes)
- Mix in sugar and cocoa
- Pour in almonds, coat with egg white mixture
- Spread out on a tinfoil-covered pan (or a silicone mat, I bet that would work even better). I ended up doing it in two batches because my pan was a bit small. Bake 15 minutes, until coating is dry.
- Remove from oven, let cool until touchable and break apart any clumps. Let cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

Nutrition info per serving: Cal: 175 Fat: 12.4g Carbs: 14.4g Protein: 6.5g

Nan's Pumpkin Cookies

Yep, another from my sister. She went to a college where one main major was naturopathic medicine and lots of people were very health-conscious and she said that everyone at school as well as the regular people at home liked these! I had never heard of the ground flax seed for egg, but I might try it some time. Since eggs are so cheap, though, I admit that it may take me a while to go look for it.

Nan's Pumpkin Cookies
Serves: How much do you like to eat? Time: Haven't tried them yet, but cookies tend to be slow.

1 3/4 cup pumpkin
1 Tblsp oil
1 egg or (1 Tblsp ground flax mixed with 3 tblsp water)
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp total spices you would put in pumpkin pie they recommend 1/4 nutmeg & 3/4 cinnamon I use pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups oats
1/4 - 1 cup chocolate chips (depends on you)

- Mix it all together and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. =) [That's how she told me - cookies should be first four, then second four, then oats, then chips.] They will not brown and have a more cake-like quality than normal cookies do. They do look different when they are done and you test them by breaking one in half and seeing if it is cooked all the way through.

Smoky Broccoli Casserole

This is one of the recipes that I used my left-over chipotle chiles in. It was definitely a good call. The original title from CookingLight was "Zesty Broccoli Casserole", but I don't know where they think they found "zesty" in their version unless their cheese was SUPER sharp. They used frozen broccoli, but I used fresh. It was still a bit crisp, but I don't like mushy food. We decided that this would be really good as a main dish with (1 1/2 lbs) chicken added in. We used the chipotle pepper in adobo left over from the sloppy joes, and it added a nice flavor.


Smoky Broccoli Casserole
Serves: 4-6 Time: 40 min

Ingredients

2 medium heads broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
Cooking spray
1 1/2 cups fat-free milk
2 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded pepperjack cheese
1/2 cup (4 ounces) fat-free cream cheese, softened (or neufchatel)
3/4 cup chopped onion (about 1/2 medium)
1 (8-ounce) can water chestnuts, rinsed, drained, and sliced
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
3/4 cup breadcrumbs

Preparation

- Preheat oven to 375°.

- Chop broccoli and arrange in an even layer in an 11x7 or 8x8-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray; set aside.

- Combine milk, flour, salt, and pepper in a large saucepan over medium-high heat; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add cheddar and cream cheese; stir until smooth. Stir in onion, chipotle pepper and water chestnuts. Spoon cheese mixture evenly over broccoli.

- Sprinkle breadcrumbs evenly over cheese mixture. Lightly spray breadcrumb layer with cooking spray. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until mixture begins to bubble and breadcrumbs brown.

Flavored oatmeal

Here's another one from my family. As my sister said, "With quick oats they don't take that long and have real fruit compared to the packaged stuff." I think it's a good point. She tops hers with white or brown sugar or honey with cinnamon if she uses apple.

Nan's flavored oatmeal
Serves: 1 Time: 10 minutes

1/2 cup oatmeal (old-fashioned or quick)
water (according to oatmeal package, or your taste)
1/2 apple or banana (eat the other half with your breakfast!)

Apple version:
- So for the first one you chop up half an apple (if you use a food chopper it's quick) and you add it just after you have the oatmeal stirred into the water.
- Then you add some brown sugar/honey/sugar and cinnamon when it it done cooking.
- And you eat the rest of the apple.

Banana version:
- For the other one once it is done cooking you add a sliced banana (or half depending on how big it is/# of serving) and some maple syrup/honey/sugar/brown sugar and maybe seeds or nuts.