Moist Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Why oh why must we spend so much $$ on lattes and treats at coffee-houses when we can recreate the same goodness at home? This is me chilaxin' with my fix at home :)

My sister-in-law got me hooked on this banana bread....I added chocolate-chips, delish!
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4cup canola or olive oil
1/4cup mayo (reduced-fat)
1 1/3cup mashed very ripe bananas, about 3
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2cup flour, I use white wheat flour (to sneak in some more fiber)**
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2cup toasted walnuts
1/2cup chocolate chips
**white wheat flour is just unbleached all-purpose flour with wheat bran

DIRECTIONS:
1. Mash bananas in mixing bowl, then add sugar, egg, vanilla, oil & mayo until smooth.
2. In another bowl combine dry ingredients: flour, baking soda & salt.
3. Add dry ingredients to banana mixture in batches stirring until moistened.
4. Add walnuts & chocolate chips.
5. Pour into greased 9x5" loaf pan; I used a glass pie dish (doesn't matter)
6. Bake at 350F for 1hr, or until toothpick comes out clean and banana bread golden brown. For the glass dish 45 minutes was more than enough.

Now for the latte...it helps if you have an espresso machine at home. We got a steal of a deal on this espresso machine during a 24hr flash sale, all I can say is "SCORE!"Do not fret if you don't have a fancy machine, just buy good-quality espresso beans and make some strong coffee from your coffee maker. I recommend Illy Coffee.Then buy a hand-held milk frother, put your milk in the microwave until almost boiling and froth away! 

The website below is a FREE 53 page e-book on copy-cat Starbucks-like recipes, it includes everything from the Caramel Macchiato to their pumpkin scones. It's a nice thing to have in case you get a craving for something; or are baking so proficiently that you want to open up your own coffee-shop and charge an arm and a leg for coffee and a sliver of cake!

http://www.coffeefair.com/free-coffee-recipes-ebook.htm
Do not worry it is SAFE, I have downloaded it with NO problems.

Ahh...what makes me look forward to waking up in the morning.....opps did I say that!?
 I mean seeing my kid's smiling faces ;)

Perfect Oatmeal Choc. Chip Cookies

I treat my blog as an online cookbook for me. Since I use recipes from all over: my cookbooks, magazines, internet, pinterest, etc. I don't always remember where I get the recipe, so if I post it on my blog then I know for sure it will be there when I want to make it again. So that is why I posted this somewhat original oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe. It turned out fabulous. And did not use a ridiculous amount of butter, I have a 1 stick of butter limit. I refuse to make cookies that call for more than 1 stick, unless you are making 6 dozen or so ;)

link to recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/wayne-harley-brachman/chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies-recipe/index.html


I froze half to enjoy for later. When frozen fresh....you cannot even tell that they weren't baked that day. Just make sure to use freezer ziploc bags to prevent freezer burn. Sometimes I will wrap them in foil, to which freezer burn cannot stand a chance!

Nutty Mocha Biscotti

I tried something new and sent a recipe card along with my Christmas cards to close family & friends. I had a really cute picture of my daughter from one of her photo shoots, and had just made these...so I decided to put the two together. And everyone really enjoyed them. So here is the recipe for all to see :)

Ingredients: 

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 Tbsp. instant coffee

1 cup chopped pecans

heaping handfuls both chocolate chips & chopped pistachios

Directions

 HEAT oven to 325°F.

 MIX flour and baking powder in small bowl. Beat next 4 ingredients in large bowl with mixer 2 min.    or until well blended. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing until well blended after each addition. Stir in nuts.

 DIVIDE dough in half. With lightly floured hands, shape each half into 14x2-inch log on greased baking sheet. (Dough will be sticky.)

BAKE 25 min. Remove from oven. Cut each log diagonally into 16 (1-inch-thick) slices. Place, cut sides up, on baking sheet. Return to oven. Bake an additional 10 to 15 min. on each side or until lightly toasted on both sides. Cool completely.

MELT chocolate chips in microwave for about 1 minute, dip biscotti end in chocolate then pistachios……ENJOY!

first round of baking done

10 more minutes per side

getting all dressed up

all done & ready to be eaten!

I could not resist posting these pictures too!

Cookie Xchange & Slow Cooker Lava Cake

I love the concept of a cookie exchange. Bake a couple dozen of the same cookie and then share the fruit of everyone's labor!! (In half the time of what it would have taken you to bake everything.)

In effort to get out of the house and meet new people, I jumped at my invitation to a book club in August, plus I consider myself a book worm. I had been in Cincinnati for almost 9 months and had oh...3 friends. Mind you I was figuring out this whole motherhood thing out and had my hands full at times. But after the routines & scheduling had kicked in with my daughter, I was ready for something else. PLUS my husband had never put my daughter to sleep at night because why would he if I was home!? So very happy to have this 'social' evening with these lovely ladies.

 Good food, great girls, and flowing conversations....what else do you need!???

We usually bring appetizers, finger food, dessert, etc.

picture taken directly from tasteofhome.com

For our cookie exchange  get together,  I brought slow cooker lava cake with candy cane ice cream (to be festive). Imagine...steaming lava cake with a minty cold ice cream melting over it....are you salivating yet? Because I know I am! It is so so easy to make and clean up was a cinch with my newly discovered slow-cooker liners. I read a review of the recipe and someone had recommended using a slow-cooker liner bc the cake really stick to the pot and then you need a chisel to get it clean afterwards.

3 main ingredients for the lava cake: devil's chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding, and lots of chocolate chips. And there can be so many different variations to it, if you let your imagination (or taste buds) run wild.

Change up the pudding: use vanilla, coffee-flavored, mint, etc.
Change up the choc. chips: use peanut butter chips, butterscotch, white chocolate, etc.

Had to include this bc its such a great invention, find it in the saran wrap/ ziploc bag section of your grocery store.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Slow-Cooker-Chocolate-Lava-Cake <---link to the recipe, enjoy!!

The cookies that I brought were soft ginger molasses, I got the recipe from a blog, Bran Appetite, that I recently started following. She had a post up called "my top 6 holiday cookies", I do plan to give all of them a try, but one at a time ;) So far so good! I did sub butterscotch chips with Heath toffee chips.

http://www.branappetit.com/2012/11/27/my-top-6-holiday-cookies/

the girlies

"Its the most wonderful time of the year!"

Greek Yogurt Cheesecake Cups...guilt free

mm mm mmmmmmm

Getting the cream cheese filling ready

Filling the bottom with almond granola

fill 'em up

swirled some melted chocolate & topped with white choc chips

this was my fail, had a huge blob of chocolate fall, so I swirled it for a marbled effect
delicious none the less!

Link for recipe:

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/greek-yogurt-cheesecake-cups#cmpid_FB_Link

my deviations from the original: I filled the bottom of my glass cups (instead of cupcake liners) with granola instead of melted chocolate. And I topped mine with the melted chocolate. The sky is the limit with what flavors you want to put into the cheesecake mixture or for the garnish on top!!

Chewy Coconut Cookies

So technically these are called 'candies' as opposed to a true cookie, but they are easy to make and delicious.

I think I added too much condensed milk so go easy. When they are baking the monds all melted together, so I worked quickly while they were still warm with a spatula and seperated them back into individual units.

recipe---> http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/coconut-almond-kisses-89031.aspx

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Loaf

I took the healthy pumpkin loaf recipe from Spark Recipes and added a low-fat cream cheese layer!

Tastes way better than the one from Starbucks!

1 cup margarine

3 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
4 teaspoons ginger
1/2 teaspoon cloves
2/3 cup water
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 cup nuts

this will make 2 loaves...make one with cream cheese and one without!

1. Cream together margarine, sugar, and eggs.

2. Combine all dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture alternately with water and pumpkin.
3. Beat well.
4. Pour into 2 well greased loaf pans or makes 24 muffins. ***for cream cheese center
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minute (for loaves)or until toothpick comes out clean.

**for cream cheese center

1 pkg. (8 oz.) reduced-fat cream cheese, at room temperature

1 egg white

2 Tbsp. granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

-whisk ingredients together until smooth

-Spoon half the pumpkin batter into 9x5-inch nonstick loaf pan sprayed with cooking spray; cover with cream cheese layer and top with remaining pumpkin batter.



What could be better than breakfast in bed??

Zucchini Bread

Not sure what do with those zucchini in your fridge?? Make zucchini bread :)

This makes 2 loafs:

3c. flour
1 1/2tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 c. canola oil (or what I did was 1/2c. oil, 1/4c. applesauce & 1/4c. light mayo)
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 c. finely shredded zucchini
1/2c. chopped walnuts + 1tsp. flour

Directions:
1. Mix together dry ingredients from flour to salt, set aside.
2. In another bowl beat sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla, mix well.
3. Add zucchini to sugar/egg mxiture.
4. Fold in flour mixture until lumpy, add walnuts. Hand stir until uniform.
5. Pour batter inside greased loaf pans.
6. Bake at 350F for 1hr & 10min, until golden brown and inserted toothpick comes out clean


Raw Brownies with Coconut Ice Cream

Another inspiration from my Raw Movement :)

Brownies from Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Food Made Easy

(recipe copied directly from her website)
Yield: 8 brownies, 4 servingsThese are truly one-bowl brownies--you'll never have to wait more than 5 minutes again when that chocolate craving strikes.1 1/2 cups raw walnuts, unsoaked
dash salt
8 pitted medjool dates, unsoaked
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa or carob powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons water
1/4 cup dried cherries
Place the walnuts in a food processor fitted with the S-blade and process until coarsely chopped. Remove 1/4 cup of the walnuts and set aside. Add the salt to the remaining walnuts and process until finely ground. Add the dates and process until the mixture begins to stick together. Add the cocoa powder and vanilla and process until evenly distributed. Add the water, dried cherries, and reserved walnuts, and process briefly, just to mix.
Pack the mixture firmly into a square container. Stored in a sealed container, Brownies will keep for up to one week in the refrigerator or one month in the freezer.

*You need to like dark chocolate to like these brownies....but they are delicious because I LOVE dark chocolate!!

I made the coconut ice cream by putting a banana in the freezer,letting it thaw for a few min, and then throwing it into the food processor with unsweetened shredded coconut. Viola fat-free ice-cream in a zilch. Plus it adds some sweetness to the brownies, perfect combination!

Dessert in the RAW

RAW GINGER COOKIES

Recently have been exposed to the RAW FOOD movement, as I like to call it. One can be as hard core as they want to be and only eat raw food, or incorporate it here and there. Nothing is cooked over 110F, no sugar, no salt, no preservatives...just everything in the raw, unprocessed. Sounds boring, but if you google this stuff, the food realy looks delicious! The way they can mesh ingredients and flavors, is fascinating. Although I do not think I will purchase a dehydrator and eat 100% raw, but their way of making dessert appeal to me: no cream, no butter, no sugar....none of the bad stuff that is usually in dessert. So I took it upon myself to purchase Raw for Dessert by Jennifer Combleet and attempt to make every dessert from this book (over the next year of course), because they are so healthy, and a perfect snack or after-dinner sweetness to satisfy those cravings. Basically all the ingredients consist of nuts, dried or fresh fruit, coconuts, avocados...if you do need to sweeten something you use agave syrup (made from the agave cactus) or raw honey. Raw food is much more nutritious because all the original vitamins/minerals are still intact, you body digests it better, and helps with weight management as well!

Raw Ginger Cookies (pictured above)

1 cup raw almonds

1/4 cup raw walnuts

2 T, whole cane sugar (i used stevia)

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

pinch salt

pinch ground nutmeg

8 pitted medjool dates

1/4 cup raisins

Directions:

Place 1/2 c. of almonds in a food processor fitted with the S blade and process until finely ground. Set aside in a small mixing bow.

Put the remaining 1/2 cup almonds and all the walnuts, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, sat, and nutmeg in the food processor and process until, coarsely chopped. Add the dates and process until the mixture begins to stick together. Don't over process; chunks of almonds and walnuts should still be visible. Add the raisins and pulse briefly, just until mixed.

Remove the cookie dough from the food processor and place it in a medium mixing bowl. Scoop about 1 tablespoon of the dough into your hand and squeeze it firmly until it sticks together. Roll it into 1-inch ball and flatten it slightly to make a cookie. repeat until all the dough has been used. Roll each cookie in the ground almonds and place on a plate. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.

Store in a seal container, will keep 1 month in the refrigerator or 3 months in the freezer!

STRAWBERRY SOUP

Strawberry Soup

2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled

1/4 cup plus 1 tsp light agave syrup

1/4 cup raw cashews, soaked about 1-2 hours (makes them creamier when blended)

1 tsp lemon juice

Thinly slice 3 of the strawberries. Place them in a small bowl with 1 tsp. of the agave syrup and toss gently to combine. Set aside in the refrigerator.

Place the remaining strawberries, agave syrup, raw soaked cashes and lemon in blender. Process until smooth. Chill in refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving. Serve in shallow soup plates or shot glasses, garnished with the reserved strawberry slices.

Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator, will keep for 24 hrs.

Recipes from Raw for Dessert: Jennifer Cornbleet

Salted Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Salted Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies  <--click on the link for the recipe

Photo from Food 52

I just whipped up a batch of these cookies!! They are amazingly delicious. I do not know what it is about the salt, but it adds another dimension!

To make it healthier I replaced the butter with an olive oil margarine (Becel Brand). And I did use natural PB because that is the only kind I had, even though they told you not to. Give these cookies a try!

Blueberry-Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

I was at the grocery store and there were blueberries on sale. I am usually pretty skeptical about buying any type of berries in the winter months because they usually taste like 'blah', but as I looked at them they were so big and juicy, plus I miss the sweet taste of fresh blueberries...and I was suckered into buying them. Took them home, washed them, and ate the whole pint :) Delicious! Went back to the grocery store and bought 3 more! Decided I wanted to bake something with blueberries because I was having some friends over, so I go on the search and find this great recipe for a cream cheese type blueberry coffee cake.....it was a hit.

The website I usually use as a search engine for healthy recipes is http://www.myrecipes.com/
They compile a bunch of different recipes from different cooking magazines, mostly from Cooking Light; which is by far my most favorite cooking magazine. I have had a subscription for the past 6 years?
Be cautious of the recipes from Sunset Magazine because they usually call for a cup of butter or heavy cream. And of course after saying that, this recipe is from Sunset...lol. (But with only 1/2c. of butter which is still more than I usually use, but that is okay, the cake was worth it).
Here is the link to the recipe:

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000001011245

I made Chai Lattes to go with it. Technically you are supposed to use this recipe with a slow cooker allowing all the flavors to mix and set in. However, I was pressed for time and let it simmer in a saucepan for about an hour. So here is the official recipe

2 quarts (8cups) water
8 bags black tea
1/2 cup sugar (less if you do not like it sweet)
2 tsp. ground cloves
2 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom (optional)
8 slices fresh ginger (i used ground ginger, sorry didn't measure it, but to added to taste)
1 cup 2% milk

1. Combine water, tea, sugar, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger in CROCK-POT slow cooker. Cover, cook on HIGH for 2-2.5 hrs.
2. Strain mixture; discard solids. (Tea may be covered and refrigerated up to 3 days.)
3. Stir in milk just before serving. May be served warm or chilled. Makes 10 servings