Banana Bread

I don't know about you, but we don't tend to have many extra ripe bananas left over at the end of the week over here. So although we absolutely love banana bread, we don't make it that often. Just say the word banana and Tucker comes running. It's hilarious. He loves them! And we love using banana in our morning smoothies.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I found myself with two bananas on their way out this week. One really on its way out from the week before....but I told myself this would be the week I finally baked something in our new home. The smell of freshly baked banana is like no other. It makes the whole house feel warm and cozy.

My mother-in-law gave me a great recipe for banana bread back when J and I got married. Not only is it delicious, it's the most realistic banana bread recipe I've found. The only ingredient we rarely have on hand in our home is orange juice. But that's easy enough to pick up. What I love about this recipe is that it only calls for 2 bananas. I actually googled around a little bit Sunday morning looking for a recipe I could throw together without a trip to the store (for OJ) but they all called for 3-4 ripe bananas. We never have 3-4 extra bananas. We only buy 4, 5 at most each week! So no, these recipes are not realistic for us. So instead I made J go to the store for me. :)

Ingredients (makes 2 loaves)

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp boiling water
• 3 tbsp boiling water
• 2 bananas, mashed
• 3 cups flour (I used 1 1/2 cups whole wheat, 1 1/2 cups all purpose)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup orange juice

Recipe to follow after you drool over the pictures

Disregard the milk in this picture....not needed

Cream together the sugar, butter & eggs

Add baking soda to boiling water, stir

Mix into creamed mixture

Mix dry ingredients together, add alternatively to creamed mixture with the orange juice

Add mashed bananas (and nuts if you prefer)

Pour into 2 loaf pans (or 1 loaf pan, 1 muffin tin if you're like me)

Bake at 375 for 35-45 minutes. (take muffins out after 15-20 minutes)

Enjoy!

Fun Fact Friday

Just keeping you in the loop with what's going on over here.

1. This weekend is my sister's bridal shower. It's being thrown at my parents' house & hosted by my mom, myself, and Jackie's bridesmaids. I cannot wait. I am so excited to see my extended family & friends and meet some of Adrian's. And I'm really happy my mom agreed to host it at her house. Although it's more work than renting a venue, I'm looking forward to the laid back feel a home shower brings. And I'm really excited about all the decisions we've made too! (which I'll fill you in about next week, post event).


2. This past weekend J was the best man in a friend's wedding and we had SO much fun. The bride & groom have the best family and friends and we made sure to celebrate all weekend long. Posts to come next week!

3. I've decided I need something to train for/ work for. While training for the half-marathon I had no problem getting up, at any hour, to make sure I got my workout in. In the two weeks since the race, I have totally relaxed my workouts, as in, I've hardly done anything. J, on the other hand, has been meeting up with a friend every morning to workout in a nearby park. Burpees, sprints, push ups, sit ups, you name it. And he's really enjoying it. Having someone to meet up with helps him stay on track. So, I've decided to start the Jamie Eason LiveFit 12-week Trainer. It's a 12-week strength training course that lays out your daily workouts for you (there is also a diet portion, but I won't be following that). Do you know how nice that is when you work out at 5:30 am? You mean I don't have to think of my own game plan for the gym?? Sign me up! Oh, and it's free which is great. Why not give it a try?

4. I've completed the first 3 days of the program and it's been great. Day 1 was chest and triceps and let me tell you, I am sore! My typical arm workout focuses on biceps and triceps. I close to never work my chest muscles. Day 1 included 72 pushups. Right?! Let me say that again, 72 pushups. 3 sets of 12 wide pushups and 3 sets of 12 narrow pushups. More than I've done in the past year, definitely. More than I've done in the past 2 years, probably. Day 2 was back and biceps. I'm curious how my back is going to feel by the end of today. It's not too sore yet, but maybe it's just being overshadowed by my chest muscles. If a sore chest means I won't have that fat bulge in strapless dresses this summer (you know what I'm talking about) then keep the pushups coming! This morning was legs & calves. I don't think I've done barbell squats since college. Yikes. If I'm walking funny by the end of today, you'll know why.  These legs were a bit shaky by the end of this workout.

5. Thursday morning I decided to try out a new breakfast for J & I. You know our love of overnight oatmeal, our typical breakfast at least twice a week. But yesterday morning I was in the mood for something else. I had bookmarked the Fitnessista's serious cereal recipe a few weeks ago. Since we typically use almond milk these days for our oatmeal, we don't always have regular old skim milk in our house. But my milk of choice for cold cereal is still dairy milk. So when our fridge had a fresh bottle of dairy milk and no soy or almond milk, I knew it was time to give this a go. Ummm....you have got to try this recipe! It's ridiculously easy and sooo good! I am craving it right now as I type this. It will definitely be making its way into our breakfast routine.

6. Speaking of food. J was reading an article last night that listed out the top reasons men breakup with women and vice versa. Apparently, one of the top reasons women breakup with men is because of diets that vary too much. Really?! I am very fortunate that J will eat just about anything I put in front of him. He is so willing to try all these new healthy recipes I'm currently digging and that means a lot to me. He finally caved and tried a Larabar yesterday and then texted me to tell me it was actually good. Ha! Told you so darling. :)

7. I hope you have a fabulous weekend! Get ready for next week, wedding posts all week long! Wahoo! Recaps from the amazing wedding we just went to, a recap of Jackie's shower, and a few great wedding detail posts. I hope you're excited.

Blueberry Muffins

Sunday brunch was a must this past weekend. We were expecting about 20 friends to be coming over before the South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade and I wanted to be able to provide quick finger food to anyone who needed something to snack on.

In addition to bagels and a huge bowl of fruit we had out, I wanted to make muffins. I love recipes that do not require picking up anything extra from the store. And somehow, I had enough milk, eggs, AND butter in the fridge! That never used to happen. And with blueberries in the fridge and freezer, I knew exactly what kind of muffins I'd be whipping up.


What you'll need:

• 1/2 cup butter, room temp
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp baking soda
• salt
• 2 cups flour - I used 1 cup white, 1 cup whole wheat
• 2 tbsp applesauce
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 2 1/2 cups blueberries (frozen or fresh)

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Once the butter was soft, I placed it in a bowl and used a spoon to spread it out. You want it to look somewhat creamy. Mix in the sugar and beat until pale.

Next add the eggs. I mixed each egg in separately and used the hand mixer to beat the eggs into the sugar mixture.

Add the vanilla, baking soda, and a pinch of salt, mix.

Fold in the flour & milk, alternating between the two. This is where I decided to add applesauce to the recipe. The whole wheat flour is dry so adding the applesauce really made the muffin mix the right consistency.

Lastly, mix in the blueberries and lemon zest.

Spoon the mixture into 2 greased muffin tins (you should have enough for 18 muffins).

Bake 15-20 mins.

With a waste not, want not thought process going on, I decided to use the rest of the fresh blueberries and raspberries we had and supplemented the rest with frozen blueberries. These muffins were delicious right out of the oven...hence the picture of 17 muffins....oops! :)

And 2 days later, they were a life saver Monday morning when I decided to sleep in a little and rush to get ready for work. Guess it was a good thing we had a few left over!

And, yes those are birthday wrappers. Like I said, I used what we already had this time. :)

How Do You Start Your Day?

As we've all heard a million times, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Although I've heard from friends and family that when they eat breakfast they just get hungry earlier in the day, that's a good thing! It means your metabolism has been kicked in to gear, and you're burning calories instead of storing them. It's definitely a tough mental game, and even I hate being hungry by 10 am when I've eaten breakfast at 8, but it is so much healthier than not eating breakfast at all.

Lately, I have found SO much information on healthy breakfast options online. Although I continue to have an interest in DIY & home design blogs, I have found a new love and appreciation for healthy eating and fitness blogs. With no major projects to be done at our condo and no longer working 15+ hour days, I have been focusing a lot more attention on my own health and fitness. And I have felt SO great lately working out consistently and watching what I eat. I really hope I can stick with the morning workouts and healthier meal options.

Breakfast as of late has involved a lot of oatmeal. It started with steel cut oatmeal. I love the crunchier texture. It's a great hot meal in the morning that I've paired with fruit and almond butter. Oh and if you haven't tried almond butter, you should. It's one of my new obsessions. It goes great with everything, and provides more micronutrients than peanut butter- including Vitamin E, magnesium, calcium, and iron. Personally, I love the taste and texture- it's not as salty as peanut butter and a little crunchier.

Steel cut oatmeal with fresh fruit & almond butter

Well, as much as I love steel cut oatmeal, I recently found out about overnight oatmeal. And let me tell you, this stuff will certainly hold you over until lunch. Trust me. When I go to the gym in the morning I am just starving alllll dayyyy longggg. Even the steel cut oatmeal doesn't always hold me over until lunch.

I owe my overnight oatmeal recipe to Julie at Peanut Butter Fingers. I started reading her blog less than a month ago and absolutely love it. On more than one occasion I have laughed out loud at her writing. Anyways, her overnight oatmeal recipe is great. I have tweaked it as needed depending on what I have in my fridge, but overall, I have Julie to thank for my new favorite breakfast. J enjoys it too!

To make overnight oatmeal for J and I, I have been combining one greek yogurt (6 oz cup), 1 cup light vanilla soymilk, and 1 cup rolled oats. I've also been adding a tablespoon or two of ground flax because we still have plenty left from our Cleanse. 

Things I quickly realized after our first overnight oatmeal mixture - use flavored greek yogurt. The first time I made it, I used what we had. Which included plain greek yogurt & regular skim milk. I added honey for sweetness as recommended but it just didn't do the trick for us. But, what a difference using flavored greek yogurt and vanilla soymilk makes! Night & day I tell you. The plain overnight oatmeal NEEDED fruit and almond butter. The flavored one could have easily been eaten on its own. But why not add fresh fruit and/or a nut butter if you have it?

When you mix the ingredients, you want to have a somewhat soupy mixture. Trust me, the oats will absorb the moisture. Cover it, and put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, it should look something like this - 

Overnight oatmeal

Add some toppings such as fresh fruit, raisins, maple syrup, a little more milk, stevia for sweetness if needed, almond/peanut butter, etc....Strawberries were buy one, get one free last week so we ate plenty of fresh strawberries over here....

Looks pretty tasty, right? This weekend while home visiting both sets of parents, I told my father-in-law about our new favorite breakfast. We were at the local health food store and I couldn't get over the fact that a HUGE bag of rolled oats was $6. The bag was too big for us to even store so I opted for the $2 bag, which let me tell you, was still a decent size. My father-in-law decided he'd like to try overnight oatmeal (and why not for $2 a bag of oats!) so we made some Saturday night. Both in-laws loved it! (cue the sigh of relief)

J & I usually use Chobani flavored yogurt with the fruit on the bottom which has been great. But my in-laws had strawberry greek yogurt in their fridge and it was soooo good in the overnight oatmeal. We bought some flavored greek yogurt at Trader Joe's Sunday to use in some of this weeks batches. 

And since not every day am I in the mood for so much dairy in the morning, I will certainly continue to make steel cut oatmeal from time to time as well.

Let me know if you give this a try! An added bonus to overnight oatmeal, by making it the night before you certainly save a few minutes in the morning... That certainly helps me on a Monday morning. 

Let's hope this week flies by just like the last few!

Moist Bran Muffins

Bob's Red Mill Moist Molasses Bran Muffins

On our way home from Rangeley, ME a few weekends ago, we decided to stop in at Reny's in Farmington, ME. The ride from Boston to Rangeley can take anywhere from 4 to 5 1/2 hours depending on traffic and weather so its nice to get out and walk around at least once during the trek.

Reny's is what I like to describe as Ocean State Job Lot on steroids. A huge store filled with a little of everything, but at great prices. Though it's not somewhere I would ever buy a gift, you can find great deals on an assortment of random items. The intentions of this trip were to pick up a cheap dog bed to keep in the car for Tucker instead of always bringing the one from the house when traveling. 

In order to get to the pet section, I had to walk by the grocery items for sale. Nothing perishable of course, but aisles of soups, sauces, cereals, crackers, etc. That's when I laid eyes on the huge selection of Bob's Red Mill flours and grains. J & I are trying to eat healthier these days and this was the perfect place to stock up. I ended up buying steel cut oatmeal, wheat bran, whole wheat flour, barley, buckwheat, and semolina flour. J thought I was nuts but at prices averaging around $1.99 each, I couldn't resist.

On the back of the wheat bran is a recipe for Moist Molasses Bran Muffins. Having just purchased the whole wheat flour as well, I decided to bake up a batch that Sunday night for the week. Let me tell you, we were both pleasantly surprised with how good they were! They were a great breakfast on the go, and really held you over until lunch. Add a little peanut butter for some extra protein and they were even better.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup wheat bran

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup raisins

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup milk

1/2 cup molasses (or honey)

3/4 cup applesauce

1/4 cup chopped nuts

2 Tbsp. oil

2 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 400F. Combine wheat bran, flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir in nuts and raisins. In a separate bowl, blend applesauce, milk, molasses, oil, and egg. Add to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Spoon into greased muffin tin and bake for 15-20 minutes. 

The recipe says it makes 12 muffins. I ended up with closer to 18. I also did not have molasses so used honey and since a brother-in-law with a nut allergy was visiting, I subbed in grated carrot for the nuts. So good! And so easy.

So easy, that I just pulled a second batch out of the oven this morning for this coming week -

Voila! Enjoy!