Banana Bread

Everyone has their own favorite banana bread recipe. It's such a delicious, easy, no yeast bread. Plus, I haven't met anyone that doesn't like it. Even Dionne, who doesn't like bananas, will eat banana bread.

I have tried quite a few recipes. This one is my favorite. It's simply out of this world right out of the oven with butter. It stays moist for days. Bryce likes to cut a slice, pop it in the micro for 10 seconds or so, and butter it. I don't know what is different about this one other than the added milk, but we love it and have stuck with it.

*Note, if you have ever opened my freezer, you may have been disgusted with finding brown frozen whole bananas. Exhibit A:


Well, if you have ever eaten this bread made by yours truly, it probably was made with 2 of these gorgeous bananas. It doesn't change the taste at all! Whether it's frozen and brown, or fresh and overly ripe, both work. (I do fully thaw them before I mix them in, which makes them look even more delectable...not) Trust me. I just hate to waste food. When I see a banana getting too brown, I throw it in the freezer and wait for a day when I get a hankering to make this bread. Also, I always use 2 bananas.

Banana Bread
Recipe from Sheri Onishi
Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup margarine/butter (I usually use salted butter)
1 egg
5 tbsp milk
1 cup ripe bananas (1-2 bananas)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional--I usually make it without)

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. (I just throw it in a bowl and stir it with a whisk.) In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter (I use my stand up mixer, or you could use a hand mixer.) Beat egg slightly and mix in. Add bananas. Combine dry ingredients in mixture, only mixing until just combined. STIR or FOLD in milk (and nuts if desired). Spread into greased and floured 9x5" pan. Bake until top is brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean. About 55 minutes at 350 degrees.



I've also made it in muffin cups.

I love a good orange

And I've had a fair share of not-so-good oranges from the store. It turns out, at least at our Kroger, that the organic oranges are much smaller, but MUCH more delicious, than the regular oranges. They are so much more juicy and flavorful. I'm not a huge organic person, but as far as oranges go, I will stick with these.

Lemon cookies

Growing up, my mom's side of the family had reunions every summer in the Outer Banks. We LOVED it. Each family (there were 4) would arrive at different times and just wait for Grandma and Grandpa to show up. Grandma would arrive with big ziplocks of cookies, dozens of kiss cookies, chocolate chip cookies, reeses cup cookies, and lemon cookies plus her famous coffee cake. All of us grandkids would be chomping at the bit to dig in.

Most of the kids went for the chocolate cookies, but I also loved the lemon cookies. They were like little cakes with lemon glaze. I have the recipe for her cookies somewhere, and need to try it, but last Christmas, dad gave me a Giada de Laurentiis cookbook and I found a very similar tasting cookie.

I've made them a few times, and Bryce and I love them. I'm not even a big lemon/lime dessert fan. I don't like the merengue pies, or lemon bars. But I love these cookies.

Surprise ingredient: RICOTTA CHEESE!

Lemon Ricotta Cookies with Lemon glaze
Ingredients
Cookies:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 (15-ounce) container whole milk ricotta cheese
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 lemon, zested
Glaze:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 lemon, zested
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Cookies:
In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the large bowl combine the butter and the sugar. Using an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until incorporated. Add the ricotta cheese, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Beat to combine. Stir in the dry ingredients.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Spoon the dough (about 2 tablespoons for each cookie) onto the baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes, until slightly golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 20 minutes. They are very cake like, almost like muffin tops. I always have to have one right out of the oven, even without the glaze, it's good.


Glaze:
Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a small bowl and stir until smooth. Spoon about 1/2-teaspoon onto each cookie and use the back of the spoon to gently spread. Let the glaze harden for about 2 hours.

Red, White, and Bleu (and green)

Speaking of tomatoes...

Quick Appetizer: Roma tomatoes with blue cheese and a leaf of basil.

Cut tomatoes in half, and slice the end off for a flat surface. Scoop out all the innards. Fill with blue cheese and if desired, add a leaf of basil in there.



It's a very light, refreshing snack. Plus, cheese is so good with tomatoes.

First red one!

As you may know, we have a garden.



The other day, I picked our first red cherry tomato!

Blueberry Peach Muffins

Blueberry-Peach Muffins
Adapted from a The Pink Apron recipe
Yields 16 muffins

Ingredients:
-3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided (*I used 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, and 1 cup all purpose flour)
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon salt
-8 tablespoons butter
-1 cup sugar
-3 large eggs
-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
-1 cup sour cream
-1 1/2 cups chopped peaches
-1 1/2 cups blueberries


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and lightly grease 16 muffin cups or use paper liners. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together 3 1/4 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, then set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together with a handheld or stand mixer until light and fluffy and almost white in color. Scrape down the bowl to make sure all the butter is incorporated, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and sour cream and mix until incorporated. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed just until the batter is smooth. (*Batter will be thick!)


Toss blueberries and peaches in remaining flour (separately) and gently fold mixture into the batter. You may have to use more than just 1/2 cup of flour to fully coat the fruit. (I used frozen blueberries which was difficult because they were very liquid-y; and I used fresh peaches)


Fill muffin cups and bake for 18-24 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove them from the oven, cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins from the pan to finish cooling on a rack.

Sangria

I went to a really fun World Cup 2010 Final game party. Spain vs. Netherlands. Everyone there was rooting for Espana, so there was a lot of Spanish food. I brought some snacks that reminded me of Spain when Bryce and I went last year. We loved the toasted bread with olive oil and salt brushed on it and the jamon iberico which I talked about here. Olives are so mediterranean, and I love black olives, but I'm not a big fan of the green olives. Meredith loves them. I love Meredith. I brought them. But the big hit was the sangria that I brought.



I had never made it before and boy, am I ready to make it again! I'm such a newbie, that I got the recipe from About.com! Then I adapted it to what I bought at the store and forgot to buy at the store.

Sangria
Serves 6-10
Ingredients
1 Bottle of red wine (I used a Merlot from Australia...and it was a 1.5 liter bottle which is a little bigger than a normal bottle)
1 Lemon cut into wedges
1 Orange cut into wedges
1 Lime cut into wedges
3 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup Splash of orange juice
3 Shots of triple sec (optional, but I did it)
1 small bag of frozen raspberries
1 large can of diced pineapples (with juice)
4 Cups ginger ale (I just bought a liter bottle of ginger ale)
1 can of Fresca

Preparation:
Pour wine into a large pitcher and squeeze the juice wedges from the lemon, orange and lime into the wine. Toss in the fruit wedges (leaving out seeds if possible) and pineapple then add sugar, orange juice and triple sec. Chill overnight.

Add ginger ale, berries, fresca, and ice just before serving. They say that the best Sangrias are chilled around 24 hours in the fridge allowing it to marinate together.

Smoothie Popsicles

For those hot summer days. I found this cool popsicle thing at Walmart about a month ago for $2, and was really excited to use it. It even has a little cup thing if it starts to melt, and you can use the straw to drink whatever liquid melted. When we were kids, Mom had one and we had a lot of fun making orange juice popsicles, grape juice popsicles, and anything else we came up with.

Smoothie popsicles

Make a smoothie in your blender (1 ripe banana, about 1/2-1 cup of vanilla yogurt, about 5 frozen or not strawberries). Pour it into the popsicle thing. Drop fresh blueberries into each one. Freeze overnight. You can make popsicles with almost anything probably. I would like to try chocolate pudding...maybe it would be like a fudgcicle?

Healthy snack or dessert.

Saturday morning breakfast

Bryce is stuck in the middle of his Ph.D. qualifying exam. I decided to make him a more exquisite breakfast on Saturday instead of the usual english muffin or bowl of cereal.

(Waffle recipe from the Bisquick box. We love Bisquick as if it's part of the family.)