New Born Banana Bread

A few weeks back while I was in Toronto for the birth of my nephew (a.k.a.: The cutest little munchkin on the planet!)  there were some bananas on the counter that clearly no one was going to get to in time so I decided to make a Banana Bread.  I didn't have my regular recipe handy so I made it a little different and actually thought it was so much better!  It's a super simple recipe so I wanted to share with you!  My sister and fam are chocoholics so I did put chocolate chips in theirs but when I make it for Jon and I, I'll skip the chocolate chips and either make it plain or with frozen blueberries.  So yummy for breakfast with the blue berries in it!

Ingredients:

1) 3 ripe or over ripe bananas, smashed
2) 1/3 cup melted butter
3) 1 cup sugar (use 3/4 cup only if using chocolate chips too)
4) 1 egg, beaten
5) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6) 1 teaspoon baking soda
7) Pinch of salt
8) 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
9) Optional : Blueberries or chocolate chips - 1 cup of either.


Directions:
It's your choice on if to use a mixer or not.  At home I do throw it in my Kitchenaid but in TO I did it by hand and they turn out pretty much the same.  Preheat the oven to 350°F.   Mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.  Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix.  Fold in blueberries or chocolate chips gently.  Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yummo!  Enjoy!

Mixin' It Up Must Have

As most of you know I'm soon heading to Toronto to be with my sister and her family while they welcome their newest addition.  As such I've promised friends and family who won't be able to attend the birth, I'll be baby blogging non stop while I'm there...  So before all the baby post flooding starts, I thought I would write a quick post about something that is definitely on my must have list! 

Last Christmas there was a Kitchenaid Mixer under the tree for Jon and I.  I didn't really understand all the fuss over these babies until I used mine!  There is nothing it can't do from making pizza dough, to mixing up all types of batters... and it's taken all the guess work out of getting the right consistency with icings and meringue.  I absolutely love this mixer!  (And Jon loves the tasty treats that I whip up with it!)

My favorite thing about the mixer though, is my favorite thing about most things... Accessories!!!  There are SO many cool accessories to this mixer that I have got to get my hands on!  Here are my top 3!

The first one is kind of a two-fer.  It's The Fruit & Vegetable Strainer & Food Grinder Attachment.  This is the food grinder with the attachment for a fruit and veggie strainer (Yes... an accessory for an accessory!!)  This would be such a life safer to have with a little one around.  When the day comes, Jon and I plan to avoid processed food for our kids as much as possible, and will mostly be staying away from the store bought bottled "Gerber" style stuff.  We both really like the theory of baby eats what we eat...  So this is definitely a handy little gadget for when that day comes, both for grinding up meats, pastas etc, and for fruits and veggies to make a homemade applesauce without all the sugar and junk thrown in.  Not to mention, it would be perfect for puree-ing pie fillings, and other baked yummies.  

Kitchenaid is clearly after my own heart, because they have an accessory, for the accessory of the accessory...  Yeah, this is the Food Tray.  It just sits atop the Strainer & Food Grinder to give you a bigger surface area and be able to put more food through at once.  All about the optimization!  

And finally, my last mixer must have is the grater and slicer attachment.  There is nothing I hate more that grating...  I have no idea why, but I just really feel like we should be farther along as a society and should have come up with a better way to get little shreds of food rather than scrapping it repeatedly over a metal board.  Maybe that's just me...  But this, I love... and it slices too!!  Easy peasy salads all the time!!  Love love love!!

I think Kitchenaid saw me coming when they designed this mixer.  The list goes on and on for the accessories you can put on this thing.  At the end of the day these ones are the ones I think are most useful, and the ones that will actually get pulled out and used.  Yeah... they had to have seen me coming...

Food Blog Search

I don't normally make two posts in one night, but this one couldn't wait...  And it's been a while that I've posted due to a fantastic visit from out of town guests staying with us (which I'll blog about shortly...)

Anyways, I just discovered this food search engine powered by Google.  Well, actually it's a Food Blog Search Engine.  It's AMAZING!!  You type in any recipe or ingredient off the top of your head and it comes up with a million bloggers who blogged about it and have recipes.  I was looking for a recipe for bread pudding and found a fantastic one on there from this blog for a Pumpkin Bread Pudding!!  OMG!  Delish!  Ours was soaked in bourbon but skip that for a non-alcoholic kiddie friendly version and I think it would still be just as yummy.

Here's the recipe!  I'll warn you, I bake with the philosophy that as long as they are as natural and hormone free as possible, fat and cream are love... the thicker it is, the more you love the people you're baking for.  Simple as that.  How I'm still this side of 100lbs I have no idea, but feel free to sub out for more waist line friendly ingredients at the sacrifice of love.

Ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream plus 1/2 cup whole milk (OR 1 1/2 cups whole milk)
3/4 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs plus 1 yolk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
Pinch of ground cloves
1 cup bourbon (optional, but who are we kidding...)
5 cups cubed (1-inch) day or two old baguette or crusty bread
3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted* (can skip this step if using the second set of instructions)

Directions:   **Note** There were two set of instructions - "Gourmet" and "Alternate, Common Be Lazy With Me" version...  I actually followed the Gourmet because that sounded easier to me.  Both are easy as pie bread pudding.  
 

Gourmet’s Instructions: Whisk together pumpkin, cream, milk, sugar, eggs, yolk, salt, spices and 2 tsp bourbon (if using) in a bowl.
Toss bread cubes with butter in another bowl, then add pumpkin mixture and toss to coat. Transfer to an ungreased 8-inch square baking dish and bake until custard is set, 25 to 30 minutes.  Slice and Serve.  Top with remaining bourbon to taste.

Alternate, Come On, Be Lazy With Me, instructions: While preheating oven to 350°F with rack in middle, melt butter in bottom of a 8-inch square baking dish. Once it is melted, take it out of the oven and toss bread cubes with butter, coating thoroughly. In a separate bowl, whisk together all the remaining ingredients except Bourbon. Pour mixture over buttered bread cubes in baking dish, stirring to make sure all pieces are evenly coated. Bake until custard is set, 25 to 30 minutes.  Slice and Serve.  Top with bourbon to taste.  

Enjoy!

Toastie Pies - a La Hey, Lady Grey

Friends, and blog followers have been asking me how the organic/ healthy eating initiative I started a little while back is going.  I think this blog post is a good indication of where I'm at....  It's going... in that I'm conscious of it.  And it's definitely improved from where it was in that I do only use my Home Grown Box of produce, or on occasion store bought organic produce.  I have cut down on refined sugar, but have not cut out.

All in all, I'm happy with the small strides I've made, and am definitely eating healthier now than I was before I started the healthy eating kick.  And as of today, I have gone 6 weeks with no fast food.  Those who know me well know that this is a HUGE feat in and of itself.

The other pitfall I'm experiencing is that in recent weeks I've become quite a blog junkie, and have been especially following foodie blogs.  One of my faves that I've posted about before is Hey Lady Grey.  Recently she blogged about Toastie Pies and they looked way too good (and easy) for me to pass them up. 

 Picture from Hey Lady Grey

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

1 apple

2 slices bread (I used raisin bread)

Cinnamon-Sugar Spread

2 Tbs butter, room temperature

2 Tbs sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Mix cinnamon & sugar in a small bowl, then mix with butter. This will make a little more spread than you need, but it keeps in the fridge and makes a great breakfast spread for toast.

3. Peel and slice apple into 1/4 inch thick slices. Place in a microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 1 min 30 seconds. Then set aside.

4. Cut crusts off bread. Then using your fingers (or a rolling pin) smush/squish the bread down to a pancake. Butter one side of each bread with plain butter. On the other side generously & evenly spread the cinnamon-sugar-butter mixture. 

5. Push the bread into muffin tins, butter side down (cinnamon side up). Fill centres with apple slices, then fold corners of bread over top to seal the pie. Don't be afraid to really squish it down so that the top sticks. Sprinkle top with a bit of granulated sugar.

6. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, or until tops of toastie-pies are golden.

7. Remove from muffin tins and serve warm with ice cream. Enjoy!