Jayme's Banana Bread

1/2 cup melted butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 mashed ripe bananas
4 T buttermilk
2 T plain yogurt
1 3/4 cup flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/8 t baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup pecans

Mix butter and sugar.  Add eggs, bananas, buttermilk, yogurt. Mix.  Add dry ingredients and mix just until combined.  Add chocolate chips and pecans.

Bake 350, 50-55 minutes

Italian Chicken Soup

I made this Pioneer Woman recipe today.  Served it with homemade rolls.  Delish!

Ingredients

1/2 box Ditalini Pasta (very Short Macaroni-type Pasta Noodles)

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1 breast cut up cooked Chicken

4 cups Low Sodium Chicken Broth

1/2 whole Medium Onion, Diced

1 whole Green Bell Peppers, Diced

1 stalks Celery, Diced (I used carrot)

1 whole Fresh Jalapeno, Diced

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1 can (28-ounce) can diced Tomatoes

1 cups Heavy Cream

2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 Tablespoons Minced Fresh Oregano

Salt And Freshly Ground Pepper, To Taste

Parmesan Cheese Shavings, For Serving

Preparation Instructions

Cook pasta in a pot according to package directions, being sure not to overcook it. Drain and rinse in cold water to cool. Toss in 1 tablespoon olive oil and set aside.

Place cooked chicken and chicken stock in a crock pot on low.  Add tomatoes and oregano.

Saute onion, green pepper, celery, carrot, and jalapeno in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat until tender and golden brown, about 10 minutes. Add to crockpot, along with pasta.

Cook on low for 2-4 hours.

Add cream, stir to combine. Turn off heat.

Serve with lots of Parmesan sprinkled on the top--the more the better! Crusty Italian bread is good, too.

Red Velvet

This is a no fail recipe!  It has turned out delish every single time we've made it.  You can make it in a 9x13, bundt, or 9 inch round pans.  The baking time may vary depending on your oven and which pan you use. 

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, room temperature
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 2 1/3 cups of cake flour
• 2 tablespoons of Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup of buttermilk*
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon of distilled white vinegar

Frosting ingredients

• 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 8 oz of Philly cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
• 2 - 3 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

*Use real buttermilk.  It is worth it!

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer for 3 minutes on medium speed until light and fluffy.
2 Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is fully incorporated. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing.
3 In a large bowl, sift together the cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl whisk together the buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla extract, and red food coloring.
4 Add a fourth of the dry ingredients and mix, then add a third of the wet. Continue adding in a dry, wet, dry pattern, ending with the dry ingredients.
5 Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Rotate the pan after the first 15 minutes of baking to ensure even baking.
6 Allow to cool for one minute in the pan then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
The Frosting
1 Cream the butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing.
2 Add the vanilla extract and mix.
3 Add the powdered sugar, continually taste to get to desired sweetness.

Healthy Breakfast

Waffles/Pancakes

1 1/2 C. milk

1 C. instant oats

3/4 C. wheat flour

1/4 C. ground flax seed

1 T. baking powder

1 t. salt

2 T. honey

2 t. vanilla

2 eggs beaten

Pour milk over oats, set aside. Mix together flour, flax, baking powder, salt. Mix eggs, honey and vanilla into the oat/milk mixture. Combine wet and dry, then cook in waffle iron. These make some really good pancakes, too, I highly recommend adding blueberries to the pancakes! I like to spread with some almond butter then drizzle with honey, but it's delicious with good ol' butter and syrup, too.

Green Smoothie

1-2 bananas

1/2 C. frozen peaches

1/2 C. frozen mango

a couple handfuls spinach

1/3 C. greek yogurt

water or juice

Blend until smooth. (today I actually had fresh EVERYTHING, including kiwis, and it was soooo good!)

Blueberry Muffins

I used the streusel topping and they were pretty dang good!

Blueberry Muffins

Recipe Source: Modified slightly from my friend Anisha who got it originally from Cook's Illustrated

**Cook's note-These muffins can be flavored with any variety of fruits and toppings.  Using the muffin recipe as a base for any flavor you like!**

Sugar Topping

1/3 cup (21/3 ounces) sugar
1½ teaspoons finely grated zest from 1 lemon

Streusel Topping
3 T white sugar
3 T brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
5 T melted butter

Muffins
2 cups (or less if you are me!) fresh blueberries, picked over
1 1/8 cups  plus 1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon water
2 1/2 cups  unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

If topping with lemon sugar, stir together sugar and lemon zest in small bowl until combined; set aside.

If topping the muffins with streusel, combine ingredients until it is the size of peas and set aside.

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare standard muffin tins with nonstick cooking spray or liners. Bring 1 cup blueberries, water,  and 1 teaspoon sugar to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, mashing the berries with your potato masher or fork several times and stirring frequently, until berries have broken down and mixture is thickened and reduced by about half.  This will take about 6 minutes. Transfer to small bowl and cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in large bowl. Whisk remaining sugar and eggs together in medium bowl until thick and well combined. Slowly mix in butter and oil until combined. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla. Using rubber spatula, fold egg mixture and remaining cup blueberries into flour mixture until just moistened. (Batter will be very lumpy with few spots of dry flour; do not over mix.)

Using a cookie scoop or large spoon, divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups (batter should completely fill cups and mound slightly). Spoon teaspoon of cooked berry mixture into center of each mound of batter. Using chopstick or skewer, gently swirl berry filling into batter using figure-eight motion. Sprinkle lemon sugar or streusel evenly over muffins.

Bake until muffin tops are golden and just firm, 17 to 19 minutes. Cool muffins in muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool 5 minutes before serving.

Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

There is much debate among the sistas as to who has the best chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I'd probably lean toward Jill's.  BUT, I like this recipe from The Mormom Cookbook, and it is titled "The Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies".  These are special edition chocolate chip cookies since I added broken Cadbury Eggs to them.  Even if these aren't the best cookies ever, I would argue that it is by far the best cookie dough I've ever had! 

1 cup butter

3/4 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 12 oz. bag chocoate chips
1/2 bag of slightly crushed Cadbury Eggs :)

Cream butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.  Sift flour, salt, baking soda.  Add to cream mixture.  Beat well.  Stir in chocoate chips.  Bake 350 degrees 8 to 12 minutes.

http://iheartchocolategifts.blogspot.com/

Holly's 30th Birthday Cake

We forgot to take a picture of our cake, but it looked something like this...

Cake:

Makes two 8-inch or 9-inch cake layers (Ours spilled over in two pans.  Next time we will use three!) 

1 ¼ cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
2 ½ cups sugar
2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 ¼ cups warm water
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, making sure the baking rack is in the middle of the oven. Prepare your cake pans by cutting out a piece of parchment or wax paper to line the bottom of the pan. Grease the pans, place the parchment or wax paper in the bottom of the pan and lightly grease again. Dust the pans with flour (or cocoa powder if you don’t want the white dusting on the finished cakes). Set the pans aside.

Using a fine mesh strainer, sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add the eggs, yolk, warm water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Mix on low speed (with a handheld mixer or in the bowl of an electric stand mixer) until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake the cakes for about 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Do not overbake! Remove the pans from the oven and set the pans on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Gently run a thin knife around the edges of the pans and unmold the cakes, removing the parchment paper liners from the bottom of the cakes.

Let them cool completely, top sides ups, on a wire rack.

Trim the tops of the cake layers with a long serrated knife to make them level.

Frosting:

*Note: this frosting takes a bit of advance planning since the frosting needs time to cool so plan ahead! Also, the frosting can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to one week. When ready to use, let the frosting stand at room temperature until softened, about 2 hours. Beat with stand mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about one minute.

*Makes about 4 cups frosting (plenty for two 9-inch cake layers)

(Three sticks of butter!!!  Are you kidding me?  I halved the recipe and it was just enough to cover the layered cake.  This is good stuff!)

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
24 tablespoons (3 sticks) butter, cut into 24 pieces and softened at room temperature

In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt. Slowly whisk in the milk until the mixture is smooth. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a medium saucepan and pour the milk mixture through the strainer into the saucepan. Cook the mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture boils and is thick enough that it starts to become difficult to easily whisk. This could take anywhere between 5-10 minutes, depending on your stove, heat, etc. It should bubble quite a bit at the end (be careful of the splatters) and thicken considerably.

Transfer the mixture to a clean bowl and cool to room temperature – this is extremely important! If it is even slightly warm, the frosting won’t beat up properly. I refrigerated my initial mixture overnight. If you do this, make sure to pull it out in time to let it warm back up to room temperature. If you try to proceed with the rest of the recipe and the mixture is too cold, the butter won’t absorb into the frosting like it should.

Once the frosting is completely cooled to room temperature (it should have no hint of warmth at all!), beat the mixture with the vanilla on low speed until it is well combined, about 30 seconds (a stand mixer will work best for this). Add the butter, one piece at a time, and beat the frosting until all the butter has been incorporated fully, about 2 minutes. Increase the speed to medium-high and let the mixer work it’s magic. Beat the frosting for five minutes, until it is light and fluffy. Let the frosting sit at room temperature until it is a bit more stiff, about 1 hour. I suspect if you chill it for an hour or so, it would be stiff enough to actually pipe with instead of frosting with a rubber spatula.

Thank you melskitchencafe.com