Thursday, June 23, 2011

Chocolate chunk banana bread.

I've finally opened a box of cook books!!!  After a lot of organizing, and the first thing I grabbed is my trusty notebook.  I'm sure everyone has a book of handwritten recipes that they go to before anything else.  Here's mine.

Lots of papers sticking out the top but I know exactly where to go to find my favorites.  I've had this for nearly 20 years.

After a great deal on bananas earlier in the week I decided to make a big batch of banana bread.  But not just plain banana bread.  I"ve been craving some kind of chocolate desert so I took some chocolate easter bunnies out of the freezer to add to my recipe.  I picked up about 20 bunnies at one of the local department stores right after Easter...I think I paid 10 cents each and into the freezer they went.  It's a lot less expensive than bags of milk chocolate chips!

No pics of the banana bread, since it's disappearing quicker than I ever thought.  Z wanted it cut right out of the oven and slathered with butter.  H says he doesn't want any but then eats half of my slice with huge bites that a 2 year old should never be able to take.

I'll give credit to my Godmother for this recipe.  I'm not sure that it's hers for sure, or where she got it, but it works out every time and it's yummy.

1/2 C melted butter
2 eggs
2 mashed bananas
2 tsp sour milk (just add a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar to your milk)
2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

Combine first 5 ingredients.  In a separate bowl combine remaining ingredients then add to wet ingredients.  Place in a buttered and floured loaf pan.  Bake for 1 hour in a preheated 300degree oven.  Add chocolate chips/chunks or nuts if you like.  Whatever you think would taste good with bananas.

**When C was making her banana bread she would always mash the bananas a few hours or even a day before.  They release a bit more liquid and the bread always seemed to stay really moist.**

And this recipe makes really good muffins too but you have to adjust your baking time.  Maybe 1/2 hour to 40 mins.

Enjoy

Next desert I think will be my mom's recipe for Rhubarb Delight. I'm hoping to try it over the weekend.  It's cookie bottom, custard/rhubarb middle, and merangue top. It's a big recipe so you need a crowd or a big appetite!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

What to make now.

I've spent most of my time lately organizing the house and little time devoted to baking, except for bread which Z is getting quite good at these days!  Now I need something easy, quick, and oh so yummy to bake with my babies.  Maybe a batch of granola if I can find a great recipe.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Daddy helped make jam.

We've made jam with fruit picked from our property already!  The rhubarb is gone crazy and if I've learned anything from my parent's huge rhubarb patch it's that picking what's ready will help the new stuff come up sooner.  So I've been picking!

Z wanted to make jam so I went online and found a recipe that we modified a little to suit what we had on hand. 

5 cups rhubarb, washed and cut into chunks
1/2 pineapple, crushed
2 C sugar
1 small package of jelly powder  (we used strawberry kiwi because that's all we had on hand)

That's all you need.  The recipe called for a can of crushed pineapple, but since fresh pineapples are on sale this week I happened to have half of one left in the fridge so we used that.

Mix the first three ingredients and leave it for 2 hours.  I think this is to help get some of the moisture out of the rhubarb.  Then boil it for 12 minutes.  Take it off the heat and add the jelly powder.  Mix well to make sure all the granules have dissolved and put it into containers.  It made 2 regular sized mason jars for us.

The kids all tasted it before it went into jars but I waited until last night and had some on homemade bread with peanut butte.  Yummmmmmmmmmm.  I think I would cut down on the sugar a bit next time (maybe 1/4-1/2 cup) but still really good.