PB Chocolate Banana Bites

Ready for an awesome snack or dessert that can make your day?

So simple, and it's only three ingredients.

THREE!!

Kasie!

Ingredients:
Bananas
Peanut butter
Chocolate Chips

Directions:
1. Slice bananas into 1/4" slices.
2. Place about 1 tsp of peanut butter on one banana slice, and cover with a second slice, creating a sandwich.  (More or less, depending on preference)

3. Melt chocolate chips (about 1 c at a time) in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until smooth.
4. Dip PB banana sandwiches in the chocolate.  My lovely assistant of the day, Kasie, found it easiest to hold each sandwich on a fork (resting on top, not pierced) and then use a spoon to drizzle the melted chocolate on top.
5. Stick in freezer on parchment paper until ready to eat.

While these didn't turn out pretty, once they came out of the freezer, they looked more 'normal', and it didn't matter much, since everyone devoured them.

Literally.

DEVOURED.

Summer Salsas

I was trolling the internets in search of a more non-traditional sauce (read non-traditional as no-tomatoes), but something that was still good on a corn chip or pita chip.

Who knew that Oprah could solve my issues??

Luckily, these two base recipes are actually the same, it's just the two main ingredients that change, so let's put it up this way, shall we?

Ingredients:
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
1/2 C chopped cilantro
1/4 C fresh lime juice
1/4 C cider vinegar
1 jalapeno, deeded and minced
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Variation One:
2 C chopped papaya
2 C chopped banana (slightly firm, underripe)

Variation Two:
2 C chopped, seedless cucumber
2 C chopped jicama

Directions:
Combine all ingredients*.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

*With variation one, add banana just before serving

Variation One: Banana Papaya Salsa

Variation Two: Cucumber Jicama Salsa

Nutella Banana Bread

Banana bread kick, still?

*sigh*

Yes.  It's not my fault.  Stores always seem to have really ripe bananas that call out to me.

And I only enjoy green bananas, so mine also get to that point fairly quickly.

 Whatever.  The idea of adding Nutella to my banana bread really appealed to me.

Here's the recipe, please go to see the Six Sisters' for their easy to follow instructions.

 I really enjoy swirling.

The whole concept is fun.

And it's just so pretty!

Just a note - this takes a LONG time to bake.  even at an hour, the middle was liquidy.  Plan for longer, much longer if you want it to stay together when you cut it!

Taste of Sweetness Saturday: Double Chocolate Banana Bread

 Thomas was able to spend five days at home this month (yay!!) and I really wanted to spoil him.  I made the chocolate peanut butter brownie/truffles, but also wanted to make something for breakfast.  Unfortunately, I ate most of it since he spent his time having breakfast with his relatives while I slaved away at work, but I doubled the batch so he could enjoy some in San Jose (which he forgot, and it's still in our freezer).

Here's the original recipe, which I adapted from.

 Double Chocolate Banana Bread

1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/5 cup apple sauce (no oil)
1 1/4 cups mashed bananas (about 3)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 C flour
3/4 C whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

 1. Heat oven to 350. Spray bottom of 8×4 inch loaf pan with cooking spray.
2. Beat sugar, eggs, and oil in large bowl at medium speed until combined. Beat in banana and vanilla at low speed. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; beat into banana mixture at low speed just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
3 Spoon batter into pan. Bake 60-70 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely on wire rack.

 I don't really "mash" the bananas, I just kind of let the electric mixer do it's thing. I enjoy that more "rustic" banana appeal, but there's too many puns there, so I must walk away.

The bread was dense and filling.  I find most whole wheat breads similar, especially when using apple sauce over oil, but it was still great to have a slice (or two) every day for breakfast.

Thomas should come home more often!!

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

Obviously, I'm make a very concentrated effort to make breakfast now (this is the second week in a row!).  I'm not a breakfast person.  I blame my schooling and teaching experiences - nothing like having lunch at 10:30am to throw off your breakfast game!  However, I am supposed to be a grown up now, and breakfast is the most important blah blah blah.  Regardless, I loved the "granola" bars, and wanted to try something else that was as easy and wonderful in the morning that I could wake up, grab, and go.  I don't leave myself more than a half hour to get up and ready, get the dogs going, and hop out the door in the morning, so the more bake-ahead items that I can make, the better!

Over at Skinny Taste, of course, I found this recipe for Low Fat Peanut Butter Banana Muffins.  The problem is that I wanted to use a whole wheat flour, which threw the rest of my measurements for a loop.  In addition to that, reduced fat Jiffy was my PB mode of choice because it was already in the house.  I would have used the low sodium version, but my husband has that with him on his business trip!

Here's my process...

Ingredients:
1 1/4 C flour (*use no more than half whole wheat -ww- flour)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda (*use only 3/4 tsp if you're not using ww flour)
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp stick margarine, softened
1/3 cup light brown sugar
5 ripe bananas - mine were small and on clearance. Use 3 if they're larger.
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce (*use only 1/3 cup if not using ww flour)
2 large egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
8 tbsp peanut butter - you choose your own poison


I wanted mini-muffins, so I greased my mini muffin pans. No liners needed if you spray, but it's always your option.






Pre-heat the oven to 325.






In a small bowl, combine your flours, baking soda, and salt.






In a large bowl, mix together your margarine and brown sugar. Then, add your egg whites, bananas, apple sauce, vanilla, and peanut butter. Mix it all up until it's nice and creamy. Since I used whole wheat flour, I had to add more apple sauce to maintain a "moist" consistency throughout the baking process. Also, I didn't mash the bananas before mixing them. I have no problem with chunks of banana in my muffin, and the electric mixer did well to break up the very ripe bananas in any case.

Finally, add your dry mixture in, and mix until just combined.  Add your batter to your prepared muffin cups 1/2-2/3 full.  My mini muffins took about 10 minutes, but the large took about 20 in my oven.  Just cook until a toothpick comes out clean.

Super simple, and very tasty.  I had some (immediately!) with a little dollop of the leftover unsweetened applesauce, but when I eat them for breakfast, I just grab three minis as is. Also, most of these ingredients I had on hand.  The only thing I needed to buy was the bananas, and it was only 11 cents for the bunch of five on clearance.  Not too shabby!  Keep them in an airtight container, and (according to Thomas) make sure you refrigerate them if you plan on them lasting all week. 

Curious how I made the conversions to incorporate Whole Wheat Flour?  Check out the Cook's Thesaurus.  They claim... "Replace no more than half of the all-purpose flour with this and add half again as much baking powder plus a bit more liquid to the recipe. Compared to all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour makes baked goods denser and coarser in texture. It provides more fiber but about the same nutrients as enriched all-purpose flour."

So moist...  does that word annoy any one else??  I couldn't get around it this time.  Sorry!