Yummy, HEALTHY Banana Bread

I know, it's been forever since I've posted here. The truth is, I just don't think in terms of blogging much anymore, because of course, I've continued to cook!   But in any case, here I am, posting a recipe that I've adapted from The Wishful Chef.  I omitted the dates that were called for, as I had none, and substituted some vanilla nonfat yogurt. For the topping, I replaced the optional brown sugar with organic sugar.  It came out simply delicious.

Yummy!

 

The Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 2 tablespoons rolled oats 
• 1/2 cup vanilla nonfat yogurt 
• 2 eggs 
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted 
• 4-6 ripe bananas 
• 1/4 cup pecans or chocolate chips (optional) (I used neither)
  
• Crumb Topping
  
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons butter, (I melted it)
• 1 tablespoon rolled oats
• 1 teaspoon organic sugar (optional)

 The Process:

Combine the crumb topping ingredients and set aside.  Spray or butter the bottom of your loaf pan and preheat your oven to 350 (F).

Start by having a willing pair of hands squish your bananas up while you do things like measure the flour, baking soda, and other dry ingredients together into a bowl.   You blend in your banana, eggs, butter, yogurt and once it's well combined, you can blend it into the dry ingredients. Just pour into the loaf pan, sprinkle that topping you made earlier and set aside, and bake for 1 hour.  It really is a very easy recipe, and SOOOOO good!  Of course, being healthy doesn't hurt either! :)

Enjoy!

(not so) Wordless Wednesday – Apple Butter

 

Living in West Virginia, it is simply not possible to notice when apple season rolls around. There’s almost as many apple trees as corn stalks as people, I swear.

Last year, we found a great place to buy bushels of apples at a great price. So the first thing I did with them was to make apple sauce and apple butter.  I say that in that order because, according to www.pickyourown.org, that’s the order you need.  You make apple butter FROM apple sauce. 

I used their delicious recipe for the applesauce and apple butter, jarred it and finally, this weekend, popped the top on the last jar.  My only regret in this was using such big jars because we do not use it all that often and so it goes to waste.  However, you live and learn, right? So this year’s batch will go into smaller jars and get to be used up quickly!

This weekend, I baked some biscuits (not from scratch) and woke my family up to this.  IT WAS DELICIOUS!  Follow the link to pickyourown.org and make some this season.

Visit my other Wordless over at Coming to a Nursery Near You as well :)  Be sure to sign the Linky

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What’s better than a campfire?

S’MORES, of course!

When we moved to West Virginia last year, one of the first things we did was buy one of those firepit things for the back yard.  It’s our first backyard, afterall, so we wanted to enjoy it fully!

So now, every time we have a fire, my kids ask me to make s’mores.  How can I say no? 

It’s such a simple request, really.  All I need is some Hershey chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers – and they’re on their way to JOY!

LOL

My kids get to roasting their marshmallows while I prepare the crackers and chocolate.  I use one square per cracker, because I am FRUGAL and like to make things last.  They (murder) toast their marshmallows and then bring them to me when they’re still nice and hot, so it will melt the chocolate and then I squish it all together with the 2nd cracker.  They they snatch it out of my hands and gobble it up!  I maybe – MAYBE  - get one or two but they can plow through the entire bag of marshmallows in less than an hour (if I let them).  It’s a fun time and they love it!

 

Mom Bloggers Club wants to know what YOUR favorite way to make s’mores is (and this post is an entry)!    Visit them here, and of course, be sure to visit http://www.smoressmiles.com/ where you can instantly win 1 of thousands of prizes!

The OMG-SO-Good apple pie, revisited

Apple pie is like the official mascot of Fall, isn't it? Once the apple trees are laden with their beautiful babes, we start thinking of pies, crisps, crumbles, cakes and more.

I, of course, am one of those people. Just this last couple of months, I've followed and created so many delicious apple recipes, my family have been VERY happy with me.

One such recipe that I had to come searching my own blog for was my apple pie. Of course, things had changed and I had a different kind of apple, but it turned out even better than I remembered!

You will need:

• 7 Macintosh YORK apples or other similarly tart apple
• 1/2 c. granulated sugar
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 2 Tbls. butter
• 2 Tbls. flour
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 Ready-to-use pie crust (the kind you unroll)
• an extremely helpful 6 yr old named Libby
• Deep dish pie dish is helpful.

First things first, I put the bottom pie crust into my glass pie dish and threw it in the oven while I prepared the apples. I poked the bottom of the crust with a fork several times, though I have no idea what that did for it LOL

Thanks to AMAZINGINLY fast shipping from Amazon, I peeled my apples in record time with my new apple peeler and then cored and chopped them into chunks.

My daughter mixed the sugars, flour, cinnamon and salt in a separate bowl.

Once the apples were chopped into bite-sized pieces, we tossed the apples into the bowl with the sugar mixture and made sure every single apple piece was coated!

Next, we layered the apples into the pie dish, being careful because it's hot now. We cut the butter up into small chunks and placed it around the apples.

Next, we placed the top crust on to the pie, pinching the pie crust closed along the edges. We cut a couple of ventilation holes on top and then rimmed the edge of the crust with aluminum foil to prevent it from burning. I painted some scrambled egg white on top of the crust to help encourage that golden brown..ness.

Into the 375 degree oven (on a cookie sheet to prevent messy, burning spills). I baked ours for about 45 minutes or so - it really depends on the apples you use. The firmer the apple, the longer in the oven. But don't let them get TOO mushy. My suggestion for after the pie is done is to let it sit for a little while - an hour is good. That lets the juices settle and of course, the pie cools down from the molten lava stage. Top with some GOOD vanilla ice cream and you're in HEAVEN!!!!!

OMG This is so good Apple Pie

We went apple picking this past weekend and now are the proud owners of WAY TOO MANY APPLES! Since the only varieties that were available to pick were Macs and Cortlands, that's what we have. Of course, they are crying out to be made into any kind of apple-y goodness I can think of so I went on the hunt for a good, easy apple pie recipe. I adapted several recipes that I found on the net and made it my own way and it came out simply FABULOUS. Please excuse my messy counter - I have a habit of starting things without thinking ahead LOL

You will need:

• 7 Macintosh apples or other similarly tart apple
  
• 1/2 c. granulated sugar
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 2 Tbls. butter
  
• 2 Tbls. flour
• 1 tsp lemon juice
  
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 Ready-to-use pie crust (the kind you unfold)

First things first, I put the bottom pie crust into my glass pie dish and threw it in the oven while I prepared the apples.

Next, I cored the apples (didn't peel them), and then cut them into quarters, and then eighths. In a separate bowl, we combined flour, sugars, cinnamon and salt and mixed.



Next, we layered the apples into the pie dish, being careful because it's hot now. After each layer, we'd sprinkle a GENEROUS helping of the sugar mixture, until we'd used up all the apples.

Then we cut the butter up into small chunks and placed it around the apples.


Next, we placed the top crust on to the pie, pinching the pie crust closed along the edges. We cut a couple of ventilation holes on top and then rimmed the edge of the crust with aluminum foil to prevent it from burning. I also swiped a bit more butter on the crust to help it brown. I'd suggest milk, though.

Into the 375 degree oven (on a cookie sheet to prevent messy, burning spills).

I baked ours from
to


So, roughly 40 minutes. Essentially, you just want to make sure the apples are done.

The finished product. So you're saying "Ok, but you said this is CARAMEL apple pie - where's the caramel, Dawn?"

I'm not a big fan of caramel but hubby is and I do love to make him happy, so I dug this out of the fridge:

Scooped some out into a microwave safe measuring cup and microwaved it for 30 seconds.

Then I brushed it on:


Voila!


A generous portion of french vanilla on top, sprinkled a little cinnamon on and OMG This is SO GOOD Apple Pie!