Banana Nut Bread

A month or two ago, we had an annoying fruit fly infestation that forced me to immediately freeze our bananas since we couldn't really keep them on the counter and no one was eating them after a day or so. Thomas has been intent on me trying out either Banana Nut Bread or Banana Pudding, so today, when I had a minute (knowing I needed a recipe for this post), I hit google and went with my first find (surprisingly, I didn't have to go searching all over kingdom come for a recipe that had just the ingredients I had at hand).

Property of SimplyRecipes.com

• Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 1 hour

INGREDIENTS

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

METHOD

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, 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. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Yield: Makes one loaf.

After reading through the comments, I thawed out my bananas (I went with four) and set to work. I went ahead and just used my masher to not only mash the bananas, but mix the entire thing, step by step, as well. Everything went perfectly and I even added in some steel cut oats (I was running low on rolled oats and didn't have any nuts) and some nutmeg for a little something extra. The only issue I had, honestly, was that I didn't have an appropriate bread pan, so I just went ahead and made them into muffins, following a commenter's lead (it made 11 for both of us and took 35 minutes instead of an hour for them to be nice, brown, and ready to eat).

I've been really wanting to find more healthy alternatives to all of the junk we eat as a family, so hopefully this is another step into the right direction. 

Pulled Pork, You're that easy?

So, I'm sure you remember my escapades with crock pot pork chops (it was only two weeks ago after all). Well, I was determined to do them right this time, and turn them into pulled pork.

A few weeks ago we went to Costco and got a huge package of pork chops, pork chops that were like two or three times as thick as the ones you get from Walmart. We also made sure to grab some actual barbecue sauce (someday I'll make my own work, but not again yet) to make sure things went according to plan.

So, when the day came, I emptied in my two bottles of sauce, put in my three pork chops, and let it go on low for about 8 hours or so. By the time it was dinner, the chops were perfectly plump and ready for the eating. I wasn't quite sure how to pull them though, so I just grabbed two forks, and went to town, trying to rip them apart (which turned out to be pretty easy).

We ended up going out to eat for a friend's birthday, so I didn't eat the pulled pork until the next day, but I think it turned out great (plus we had enough to eat for several days of barbecue sandwiches) . We liked it enough that we got some different sauce yesterday to try out this week. I definitely suggest trying this recipe. It's super easy and pretty delicious.

Simple and Delicious Salmon

So, I've been staying pretty far away from fresh fish. Though I'd love to have some sort of strong moral argument as to why, it's really just because I'm horrified of ordering from the seafood counter at Publix (what can I say, I'm shy). Costco saved me though, because they have a ton of fresh fish ready and waiting for me  to buy.

On our last few shopping trips, I've been eyeing their salmon filet (all 2.2 lbs of it), so we finally snatched it up on Sunday to take it home and become good friends with it. After deciding that it would make three well portioned meals, I divided it up, saran-wrapped the portions, and put two of  them in the freezer for later. For the last third I:

1) Preheated the oven for 350 degrees.
2) Placed the three pieces (a serving is supposedly 3 oz) in a glass dish, coated them with extra-virgin olive oil, squeezed out a bit of lemon juice on them, and then sprinkled on a tad bit of salt and a healthy bit of dill weed (we're trying to watch our sodium intake).
3) The fish goes into the oven for a quick 15 minutes and voila, it comes out perfectly cooked.

There's nothing I'd change about this recipe...except, of course, the spices every now and then. The original recipe called for butter, but, in an attempt to be healthier again, I opted for the olive oil.

I served it over campanelle pasta that was tossed with some olive oil and a few cooked bell peppers and spinach.  Overall, a great meal, if I do say so myself. I hope you enjoy it too!

Happy Eating!