Banana Bread

This recipe is straight from my mom's kitchen.  Its simple and easy but doesn't disappoint.  For some reason, we don't have a bread pan so I make mine in whatever baking dishes are clean. 

Banana Bread

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
6 mashed bananas (can use frozen or fresh)
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
OPTIONAL: nuts/chocolate chips etc 

Directions:

1. Cream butter and sugar together, add eggs, vanilla and bananas.  Mix well.
2. Mix dry ingredients together 
3. Add dry ingredients and mix well.
4. Add optional ingredients 
5. Pour into 2 loaf pans (or whatever type of pan you desire ie: muffins, cake pan etc) 
6. Bake at 350* for 50-60 minutes (if using a different pan, adjust time accordingly.

NOTE: Can substitute 2 cups grated zucchini for bananas to make Zucchini bread

PB Banana Smoothie

What should you do when your bananas start to turn brown and you know that no one is going to eat them?  Stick them in the freezer because they taste so yummy in this smoothie recipe!  You'll want to avoid the ones that are too brown or have been in the freezer for too long.  

Peanut Butter and Banana Smoothie 

2 frozen banana, cut into chunks
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon honey
1 cup milk

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Serves 2 

Mini Monkey Bread

This Monkey Bread Recipe comes from  from Ryan via The Pioneer Woman.  I reduced the recipe  by about 1/3 and made them in a muffin pan instead of a bundt pan.  It yielded 12 "muffins."

3 cans Buttermilk biscuits (not the flakey kind)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon
2 sticks butter

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Open up all three cans of biscuits and cut each biscuit into quarters.
3. Next, combine the white sugar with 2-3 teaspoons of cinnamon. 3 will be really cinnamon-y. Dump this mix and the biscuits into a gallon size zip lock back and shake it up really well.
4. Drop all of the biscuit quarters into a bundt pan (or muffin cups).
5. Melt the butter with the brown sugar in a sauce pan over medium-high heat until combined. Once the brown sugar butter has become one color, pour it over the biscuits. 
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes (or 20 minutes for the muffin cup ones) until the crust is deep brown on the top.

I should now say that you should let it cool for about 15-30 minutes, but that’s practically impossible. Just tear you off a piece, blow on it for a minute and stick it in your mouth.

Oh man, it’s good.

These were easy to make, and super yummy!  As I said above, I only used 2 cans and it filled 12 regular muffin cups with about 6-8 in each cup. 

Snacks

Here are some yummy and mostly healthy snacks that don't really require a recipe but are easy to forget about. This will be a ever-growing list.    

apple slices (w/peanut butter)
applesauce
avocados
bananas
blueberries
celery w/peanut butter
cucumber slices
deli meat (turkey or ham) wrapped in lettuce
granola bars
grapes (frozen)
gum
hard-boiled egg
homemade whole wheat bread
hummus w/carrots or celery
jello
mixed nuts (almonds)
oranges
peanut butter and banana on toast
peanut butter and banana smoothie

rice cakes
salad
strawberries
string cheese
sweet potato fries
yogurt, granola and fruit parfait 

Homemade Granola

There are lots of way to do homemade granola.  This is the recipe I typically follow.  You can adjust it easy to meet your need/preferences.  It makes a lot and we love having it around for a quick snack or to throw into yogurt or ice cream. 

Ingredients:

-6 C Quick Cooking Oats

-1/4 C Flour

-1/2 T  Cinnamon

-1/4 t Nutmeg

-3 C Random dry ingredients (raisins, coconut flakes, sunflower seeds, slivered almonds, small chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, dried banana chips, rice crispy puffs)

-1/2 C Vegetable Oil

-1/2 C Honey

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all of the ingredients but oil and honey. Mix oil and honey and microwave until hot. Pour oil and honey mixture over dry ingredients and mix well. Spread mix over 2 baking sheets and bake until lightly golden brown on top (appx 20 min, stir and cook for longer if necessary).   Let cool, then break up into chunks.