The BEST Banana Bread Ever!

Three hours of my day I work with at-risk students in a credit recovery program. You can imagine that they are not always the most pleasant youngsters, but for the most part, we've managed to figure things out. They tend to be very guarded by the high school level and if students like this bring you any kind of trinket, you should always be very appreciative.

Well, one day one of my students brought me a slice of banana bread that her mom had made. My grandma is in a bit of a trend where she makes mini-loaves and unloads them on me at every visit. I also make a ton of banana baked goods because we can never seem to get through a bunch of bananas without a few turning brown. But let me tell you, this bread that my student gave me was the BEST I've had. It was sweet, but not cake-like and had a crunchy topping.  I oozed and oozed compliments about this bread and the student (in typical teen manner) just rolled her eyes at me.

Well later that day she had to call home for something and I made sure to tell her "tell you mom that bread was AMAZING! I want the recipe!!"  So the next day, she presents me with a handwritten recipe on the cutest recipe note card. I constantly worry that I'm going to lose this card now that my recipe world is primarily online, so I thought I'd post it here for all of posterity.

I don't have a photo yet because I haven't made a loaf recently...however, after typing this, I probably will and will update with an original photo soon. I just uncovered the card in a pile of papers and figured I better type it now or never!

The BEST Banana Bread Recipe Ever!


Ingredients
- 1 stick unsalted butter at room temp
- 1 cup sugar (yup, that's why it's so good!)
- 2 eggs
- 1.5 cups AP flour (last time I used 1/4 cup whole wheat and the rest AP)
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 cup mashed, very ripe banana
- 1/2 cup sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup chopped almonds or pecans, chopped - optional
- Additional sugar to sprinkle on top (course sugar would be the best!) - optional

Directions
1. Preheat over to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan (or 4 small loaf pans) and set aside.

2. Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs beating well.

3. Sift dry ingredients together and combine with the butter mixture. Blend well.

4. Add bananas, sour cream (or yogurt), and vanilla. Stir well.

5. Add nuts if desired and mix well.

6. Pour batter into loaf pan(s) and sprinkle with sugar if desired.

7. Bake for 60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Panera Copycat: Cheesy Broccoli Soup and Spinach Salad

A while ago I tried Panera Bread's new Spinach Power Salad. I generally feel so-so about Panera and the night I had this salad, they were not on their game, let's just say. It sounded good: spinach, roasted mushrooms, bacon, hardboiled egg, and frizzled onions, but I recieved a sloppy mess. The spinach was wilted and there were few ingredients. However, I thought it was an interesting idea for something different when a salad sounded good and I like to think of it as a "man's salad" (and my husband agreed). Haha.

I've had a copycat recipe for Panera's cheesy broccoli soup for years. Basically you make a roux, add equal parts half n half or milk and chicken stock, throw in broccoli and carrots, add the cheese, voila. Easy as that. In fact if you google the recipe, you'll pretty much find this recipe all over the web. Mine never turns out as thick as Panera's, which is fine with me, but otherwise the taste is great.

We enjoyed ours with some warm French bread and dipping oil.

Both recipes follow...

Cheesy Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients

- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1/2 c. butter
- 1/2 c. all purpose flour
- 4 c. half and half (or milk)
- 4 c. chicken broth (or vegetable stock)
- 1 lb. fresh broccoli, chopped (I use the food processor b/c the husband likes a fine chop)
- 2 cups, shredded
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1/2 t. nutmeg (I always forget to add this!)
- 16 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1. Saute onion in butter until soft.

2. Whisk butter and flour over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until thoroughly combined.

3. Add the half n half little by little, stirring constantly (I prefer a whisk). Then add the chicken broth (keep stirring!)

4. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Add broccoli and carrots as well as a bit of salt and pepper and cook over low heat until veggies are tender – about 20-25 minutes. The soup should thicken. Keep the heat low to prevent sticking, but use a lid so it heats through.

6. At this point, I run my immersion blender through the soup to puree the veggies. You can carefully transfer it to a blender as well. Or, you could leave the veggies in chunks. It's all about your personal preference.

7. Then, and most importantly, add the cheese! Continue to simmer and stir occasionally until the cheese has melted.

This makes a big pot, about 8-10 one cup servings. I don't know how it freezes, but I do know that it's even better the next day!

Spinach Power Salad

Salad Ingredients (for two medium-sized salads)

- Warm bacon vinegiarette (recipe below)

- Baby spinach leaves (or any lettuce of your choice if you hate spinach)

- 6-8 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled - reserve the drippings!

- 1 hard boiled egg

- French's fried onions (you know, the ones you put on green bean casserole)

- Roasted mushrooms (recipe below)

- Crumbled gorgonzola cheese (or blue, or Parmesan, or whatever cheese you like)

*Assemble at will!

Roasted Mushrooms

- 1/2 package mushrooms (whole or sliced, button, white, or portabella... doesn't matter)

- Olive oil

- Salt and pepper

- Rosemary and/or thyme, optional

*Toss mushrooms in oil and seasonings and spread in an even layer on a foil-covered cookie sheet or baking dish. Bake in a 475 oven for 15-25 minutes. Whole mushrooms take longer, of course. Pull them out when they are browned and fragrant. Let cool before using on salad.

Warm Bacon Vinaigrette

- Bacon drippings (about 2-3 Tbsp)

- 3 Tbsp red wine vinegar

- 1 tsp sugar

- 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
- salt and pepper, to taste

*In a small sauce pan, whisk together above ingredients on low heat until dissolved. Let cool slightly, but dress salad while dressing is still warm.

Creamy Tortellini Soup

I usually save crockpot meals for long work days, but the recipe that follows only has to cook 5-6 hours.  From when I start a crockpot in the morning to when I get home from work, it's a minimum of 9 hours. Now, many recipes can simmer longer than they call for: soups, some meats, sauces, but this recipe has tortellini and I was afraid the pasta would get too mushy if I tried it on a work day. So I made it today when I could start it around noon.

This was originally a five ingredient recipe and, like most crock pot recipes, you simply dump everything in and cook.  I found this on pinterest and initially wasn't sure if it was a soup or a pasta dish.  I ended up adding a little cornstarch (technically the sixth and seventh ingredients) because I wanted a thicker sauce. In the end, I decided this was to be a soup. Also, I had one lone chicken breast left from something I made a couple days ago (I can't remember what, isn't that sad?), so I chopped it into really small pieces (about the size of a dice let's say) and threw that in too.  Here's my version....

Creamy Tortellini Soup
Original Inspiration


Ingredients
1 bag of frozen tortellini (I think it was a pound, I pitched the bag before I typed this!)
1 small bag of fresh spinach (My grocery sells whole leaf bundles, so I used one of these and chopped it up)
2 - 14 oz cans of Italian style diced tomatoes, juice and all (or regular diced tomates with 2 Tbsp Italian Seasoning)
32 oz (4 cups) vegetable or chicken broth (I used vegetable)
1-8 oz block of cream cheese, cut into cubes
1-2 chicken breasts, chopped into bite-sized pieces

Directions - Ready for it?
1. Dump everything into your favorite crockpot.
2. Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

*If you want to thicken the sauce a bit, you can stir two tablespoons into 2-3 tablespoons cool water or broth and pour that in to the last half hour or so. For corn starch to "activate" it needs to be fully dissolved in cool liquid, then heated to a gentle boil. Then its thickening powers will take over.

Not as caloric as you'd think:
Makes 8 servings / serving size = 1.5 cups

301 calories / 21 carbs / 16 fat / 20 protein

Beer and Bacon Mac and Cheese - What more could you ask for?

Well I'm spending the evening with the sniffles and a cup of hot cocoa, so I thought it was a good time to share a recipe I made last week that the hubby really loved.  This is not low fat in any way, but the best mac and cheese recipes aren't!

I adapted it from the blog Simply Delicious, which is written in metric and also made a huge batch of this recipe, so below is my adapted version.

Since I'm in the process of growing another human being, we haven't had much beer or wine in the house. Therefore, I had to buy a bottle just for this recipe. I used Bud Light because it was cheap. As a result, there was not an over-powering beer flavor in this dish. Obviously, a stronger beer would yield a stronger beer flavor if that's what you prefer.

Beer and Bacon Mac and Cheese

pic from Simply Delicious

Ingredients
- 1/2 lb bacon, diced
- 1/2 stick butter
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/2 can beer
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup half and half

- 1 cup mushrooms, chopped
- 2-3 cups strong cheddar, grated (I used a locally made Amish butter cheddar b/c it was creamier - Gouda would be good too!)
- Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Salt & pepper to taste
- 1 lb pasta (I used penne), cooked according to package directions (reserve 2 cups of the cooking water)
- 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese (or more cheddar if you don't have anything else on hand)

- 3/4 cup breadcrumbs

Directions
1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 oven-proof dish (or any large casserole dish that you fancy).

2.  In a pot or deep skillet, fry the bacon in a large pot until crisp. Remove the bacon from the pot but leave the fat.

3. Add the butter to the bacon fat and allow to melt then add the mushrooms.

4. Saute mushrooms for a minute or two then add the flour and whisk for about a minute.

5. Slowly add the beer, all the while whisking constantly. Do not stop and send a text message.. keep whisking!

6. When all the beer has been incorporated, add the milk and cream and mix until the sauce is smooth. At this point you might need to add a little more liquid, I just add more milk but you can also use chicken stock if you prefer. The sauce will thicken a bit as it cooks, plus in a bit we'll be adding some pasta water, so don't make it too thin.

7. Take the pot off the heat and add the cheese and bacon back to the sauce and stir until the cheese has melted.

8. Once cheese as melted and sauce is thick, stir in the cooked pasta. Add some of the reserved cooking water and mix well. The macaroni needs to be well covered by the sauce and will almost look like it’s got too much sauce covering it. If it doesn’t, add more of the water. If you wanted to be very decadent you could add more cream at this stage too. I added about 1/2-3/4 cups of the reserved water.

9. Mix together additional shredded cheese and breadcrumbs in a small bowl.

10. Transfer the macaroni into the prepared dish and cover with the breadcrumbs/cheese mixture.

11. Place in the oven and allow to bake for 20-25 minutes until the top is golden brown and the sauce is bubbling.