banana bread

Good morning, everyone! Can’t believe it’s already Saturday morning. The weekend is flying by. Slow down!

Anyways. Here’s my last Thanksgiving related post. This week I spent my Wednesday baking away for Thanksgiving Day.

(That rhymed).

On my dessert menu: Carrot Cake Cookies, Turkey Cupcakes, and Banana Bread. The first two were to bring along with me to my grandfather’s house, and the latter was to send with Tim since we decided to split up for the day and I wouldn’t be seeing his family.

Want the recipes?

Carrot Cake Cookies
Originally I was planning on making these as carrot cake sandwich cookies, as originally seen on Nutritionella. But I got nervous that the cookies were too thick to make a sandwich with, so I ended up making them as individual cookies with frosting. These are a little healthier since made with Greek yogurt, but since this isn’t my own creation you’ll have to click here to get the recipe specifics!

I’ll still post my pictures:

Turkey Cupcakes

There is absolutely nothing special about these except for the candy decorations on top! I used a simple store-bought cake recipe instead of doing from scratch. If I had more time, I would have tried them from scratch substituting applesauce instead of butter. Next time!

Ingredients

Cake Mix
Water
Oil
Eggs
Candy Corn
Marshmallows
Twizzlers
Chocolate Frosting

Directions

Follow directions on box for cupcakes
Once cooled, frost with the chocolate frosting
Decorate the tops to look like turkeys

These are not healthy at all. But they sure are cute!

Banana Bread

This was a second go round! The original recipe is posted here, along with the pictures. This one is healthier because it uses bananas, wheat flour, and also some Greek yogurt in the mix. I chose this because I already had all the ingredients in the house. Hope Tim’s family liked it!

Other Tidbits

A couple more pictures from the day for your viewing pleasure:

And my personal favorite:

Question of the Day: How was your Thanksgiving this year? Did you cook or bake anything special? Any good stories to share?

Off to study!

Be Thankful Challenge: My cute god-daughter!

Tonight I came home from my Tuesday two-a-day and headed directly for the kitchen to make my lunch for tomorrow. Even though what I really wanted to do was face plant in my bed. As I reached for my bananas in the fruit basket, I realized that all three of my bananas were pretty much bad. Brown. Mushy. And was that really just a fruit fly swarming over them?

Damnit.

If you know me, you know how much I hate, hate, HATE – wasting food. Throwing away food, especially produce, grinds my gears. SO MUCH.

So I sucked it up and went on a mission to salvage my three bananas.

I dug through the cabinets and realized (phew!) that I had enough ingredients to make banana bread. Special thanks / blog shout out to my roomie Slesh who kindly let me borrow 2 cups of wheat flour and 1/3 cup of her yogurt. I owe you!

Question for my followers (leave a comment) – how do you typically salvage produce or other food that you know will go bad?!

Here’s the recipe!

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour (I substituted wheat flour)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
1.5 cups mashed ripe bananas, about 3 (PERFECT!)
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cooking spray

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir with a whisk.
Place sugar and butter in large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended.
Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended.
Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.
Spoon batter into an 8.5 x 4.5 inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely.