Banana Cake

A co worker of mine has brought this cake to us a couple of times and I always LOVE it.  I finally used her recipe and made my own.  It is SO good.  If you're looking for a super moist delicious cake this is the one. 

Banana Cake-Recipe from Betty

2 Egg Yolks
1/2 Cup Butter softened
2 Cups of Sugar
1 Cup of Buttermilk
4 Ripe Bananas cut up
2 Cups of Flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Egg Whites beaten

Mix egg yolks, butter and sugar with mixer.  Slowly add buttermilk and then the bananas.  Sift in flour, salt and soda.  Combine well.  Fold in 2 beaten egg whites.

Bake in 13x9 inch buttered and floured pan at 350 degrees for about 40 to 45 minutes.

Frosting

8 oz Cream Cheese
1/4 Cup of Milk
1 to 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
Combine all ingredients adding milk or sugar depending on desired consistency.  I made it a little on the thin side to smoothly and evenly cover the cake.

ENJOY!!

A spin on Stuffed Peppers

Peppers are popping out all over around here.  Our Cayenne's are all turning red, jalapenos, big jims and bells, they all did fabulous this year.  I think with the extreme heat we had the peppers thrived.  Anyway, I made good use of a few for dinner.  I hope you give it a try, it's delish and a super easy weeknight meal.

These are the measurements for two Stuffed Peppers. 

1/2 pound ground beef cooked
Saute:
1 onion diced
1 cayenne pepper diced
2 cloves of garlic diced
cumin, paprika, chili powder, salt to taste
Combine all ingredients
Stuff peppers.

Cook at 350 for 15 minutes.  Add shredded cheddar cheese to the top of each stuffed pepper and let cook about 10 more minutes. 

I served on rice that was cooked with two diced chili's and 2 small diced tomatoes and their juice.

This was delish!!  ENJOY!!

Rice cooking with tomatoes, green chilies, salt, pepper.

Saute onions, garlic and cayenne in a little olive oil.

Mix ground beef, sauteed veggies and spices and stuff peppers.

Grilled Chipotle Chicken is a favorite of mine.

In a food processor combine 4 or 5 chipotle peppers with about a teaspoon of the adobe sauce.  Add 1 teaspoon cumin, salt, pepper, 1 teaspoon of paprika and about 1/2 a teaspoon of garlic powder.  Add about a Tablespoon of olive oil and combine.
Pour sauce all over preferred chicken pieces and let marinate at least 4 hours and then grill as normal.



Served with rice and a stuffed Big Jim pepper...a great dinner.
ENJOY!!

A cooling dessert for such a HOT day...

Sundays are the one day a week that I almost always make a dessert.  I had originally planned to make a cake but it's so hot out I really didn't want to turn on the oven and also I couldn't find the recipe I wanted.  Organizing my life is a work in progress but that's for another time. 

This dessert is quick, easy and Delicious for a hot August Sunday dinner or probably any time. 

Melt 1 stick of butter in a pie dish.  Add 2 cups of crushed graham crackers.

Spread crushed graham crackers around the bottom and slightly up the sides of the pie dish pressing with the back of a spoon.  Add broken up pieces of a dark chocolate bar.  (or any candy bar that you enjoy)

Make your favorite chocolate pudding recipe and add 1/3 cup of fresh whipping cream.

Pour chocolate pudding mixture over the graham cracker candy crust.  I then topped with homemade whipped cream and sprinkled extra crushed candy bar and graham crackers on the top.  Refrigerate for a couple hours and ENJOY!!

An AWESOME Pot Roast

When it's really hot outside my Crock Pot is a life saver. 

Carrots, garlic, sliced onion, sliced green pepper, balsamic vinegar, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper.

Place your roast in the crock pot, add 1/2 cup of beef stock, vinegar and all herbs and veggies.  Cook on low for 6 hours.
 ENJOY!!

A Quick and Easy summer pasta dish.

Sliced cherry tomatoes, garlic, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary and parmessan cheese.

Cook mini rotini pasta and drain reserving 1 or 2 tablespoons of liquid. 
Sautee garlic and tomatoes in olive oil.  Add herbs and toss with pasta.

Sprinkle with parmessan cheese and Enjoy, I did.

And I have lunch for tomorrow at work.



Another great use for won ton wrappers...

I mixed Ricotta Cheese, Mozzarella, diced garlic, fresh basil and salt and pepper.

Then I used a cookie scoop to put a ball of the mixture in the middle of won ton wrapper. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Moisten the edges with water and place a second won ton on top.  Press edges together with fingers or a fork.

Lightly brush with olive oil and bake at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle a little Parmesan on top when done and ENJOY!!

These are DELICIOUS and the possibiities are endless.

Happy Birthday to The Big Guy and his Lemon Poppy Seed Birthday Cake recipe.

Today's my husbands Birthday and he had no preference for what type of cake I made him this year so I wanted to try something new.  Something light and fresh since it's been so hot here lately.

I took the basic white cake recipe that I normally use and added lemon juice, lemon zest and poppy seeds.  For the icing I used a Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting. 

Now my cake decorating skills need a LOT of work but the cake turned out delicious.

 Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

1 Cup of Sugar
1/2 Cup of Butter
2 Egg
2 teaspoons Vanilla
1 1/2 Cups of Cake Flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup milk
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 teaspoons Lemon Zest

Cream together the sugar and butter.  Add one egg and a time and then the vanilla and continue mixing until creamy.
Sift cake flour, baking powder and salt and slowly add to above mixture.
Slowly add in milk, lemon juice and lemon zest.

Grease and flour a 9x9 cake pan or muffin tins.

For the cake pan bake at 350 degrees for approx. 30 minutes.  The cake will be a golden color and when inserted a toothpick will come out clean when the cake is done.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz Cream Cheese softened
1/4 Cup Butter
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 teaspoons Lemon Zest
1 teaspoon Vanilla
3 Cups of Confectioners Sugar

Combine all ingredients.  Add more lemon or sugar depending on desired consistency.

Garnish with more Lemon Zest and or fresh Lemon Mint.

ENJOY!!

Au Gratin Potatoes Recipe

 This recipe is great to use and experiment with different cheeses.  This time I substituted Colby cheese for the Cheddar and it was REALLY good. 

Ingredients

• 4 russet potatoes, sliced into 1/4 inch slices
• 1 onion, sliced into rings
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Butter a 1 quart casserole dish.
2. Layer 1/2 of the potatoes into bottom of the prepared casserole dish. Top with the onion slices, and add the remaining potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. In a medium-size saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Mix in the flour and salt, and stir constantly with a whisk for one minute. Stir in milk. Cook until mixture has thickened. Stir in cheese all at once, and continue stirring until melted, about 30 to 60 seconds. Pour cheese over the potatoes, and cover the dish with aluminum foil.
4. Bake 1 1/2 hours in the preheated oven. Or can be done on the grill in a well seasoned caste iron pan.



Enjoy!!



Hope your 4th of July holiday weekend ends sweetly!!



Graham crackers with strawberry ice cream



Graham crackers with chocolate, cherry, truffle nut icecream.

An AWESOME homemade brownie with peppermint icecream.

The same AWESOME homemade brownie as above but with french vanilla icecream, caramel sauce and pecans.

Always have a back up plan.

Day two of our three day weekend and I got up to make Blueberry Waffles.   mmmmmm

I love pancakes, who doesn't?  But I have a confession to make... I have still not mastered the art of pancake making.  (hanging head in shame)  It has been on my list of things to do but why worry about it when I can make Waffles!! Right??  I equally LOVE waffles and they always turn out great.

Well, after today, learning to make pancakes moved up to the top 5.

I got all of the ingredients together and plugged in the waffle iron to pre heat it.  It wouldn't work!!  It was dead!!  I was devastated!! I broke the news to my husband who is the only other one up until now that knew I always mess up pancakes and he was devastated also.  His juice was poured, he had his coffee and he thought he was going to get Blueberry Waffles.

When I said 'I'll just make pancakes' a hush fell over the room.  My husbands smile disappeared.   I so  desperately wanted to save the day.  I wanted to turn that delicious blueberry waffle batter into fantastic pancakes.

I preheated the cast iron skillet, poured in batter and watched.  My husband watched.  They looked good.  They smelled good.  But deep inside I was worried.  The few times I had attempted pancakes they looked good and smelled good but ended up either burnt on the outside or was filled with raw batter on the inside.
Would we have a repeat??

We did!!  :-(  The middle was a little raw.  Not much.  Just one mere minute on the griddle probably would have been perfect.  But they were not edible.

So I picked up my ego, held my head high and cooked up some Bacon and eggs. 

I WILL learn to make wonderful light and fluffy pancakes.
I WILL get a new waffle iron.
And I WILL always have bacon and eggs on hand for a back up plan .

A light dessert for summer!

I just came in from soaking up some Vitamin D outside.  After a week or more of rainy, cloudy days it was needed.  Something about grabbing a book or magazine and sitting outside is SO relaxing to me.  Ever since I can remember being outside doing anything makes me happy.

Today I grabbed my favorite magazine and found a lot of good summer food ideas.

I'll share them with you as I make them.  But for now here's one I'm making ASAP.

CHOCOLATE PUDDING

3 Avocados
4 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
1/4 Cup Honey
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Sea Salt

Puree avocados, cocoa powder, honey and vanilla until smooth.
When smooth divide into four small bowls.
Sprinkle with sea salt before serving.

ENJOY!!!

Recipe from www.wholeliving.com



A picture I took at the Botanical Garden in STL.



Recipe for left over chicken #2



Every time I fire up the grill I try to cook enough meat for more than just that one meal.  Sunday night I made black beans and rice and when I grilled a steak and tilapia to go with it I threw a couple of boneless chicken breasts on for tonight.
So tonight I just made a pot of rice.
Heated up the black beans and spooned some over the rice.
Warmed up the chicken breasts in the oven while the cornbread was cooking then sliced it over the beans and rice.
Topped with a little fresh cilantro and it was a fantastic dinner.

ENJOY!!



A Great Summer Sunday Dinner

Tilapia marinating in lemon, red pepper fakes, paprika, oregano and black pepper.



Tilapia grilling on cedar plank for 10 minutes.

Grilled steak and black beans and rice for me.

Grilled Tilapia with black beans and rice for my husband.

Black Beans and Rice

Saute in olive oil half a diced onion, 1 jalapeno minced, 1/2 diced green pepper, 1 or two cloves of garlic minced.  Cook until a little tender.

Add in two cups of black beans.  Either canned or beans that were soaked over night work well.

Add two cups of diced tomatoes.

Mix in...1 tsp oregano

dash of red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon cumin

salt and pepper to taste

and about 1 tsp of lemon juice.

Bring to a boil then turn heat down to low, cover and let simmer for 1 hour.

Make favorite rice to spoon beans and rice over and garnish with fresh cilantro.

ENJOY!!!

Banana Split 'Cake'

A great dessert for summer.  It's cool, refreshing and you don't have to turn on the oven.
This recipe can easily be halved.  And it can be 'cleaned' up by making your own from scratch pudding and whipped cream. 

9 Graham Crackers
1 Cup sugar, divided
1/3 Cup butter, melted
2 8oz packages of Cream Cheese, softened
20 oz of crushed pineapple
6 Bananas,divided
2 3.4oz packages JELL-O Vanilla Instant Pudding
2 Cups cold milk
2 Cups thawed Cool Whip
1 Cup chopped Pecans

Mix graham crumbs, 1/4 cup sugar and butter; press onto bottom of 13x 9 inch pan.  Freeze for 10  min.

Beat cream cheese and remaining sugar with mixer until well blended.  Spread carefully over crust; top with pineapple.  Slice 4 bananas; arrange over pineapple.

Beat pudding mixes and milk with whisk for approx. 2 minutes until well blended.  Stir in 1 cup Cool Whip; spread over banana layer in pan.  Top with remaining Cool Whip.  Refrigerate 5 hours.  Slice remaining 2 bananas just before serving; arrange over dessert.  Top with nuts and drizzle with chocolate syrup or chocolate curls.

Graham cracker crust and cream cheese mixture.

Added pineapple and sliced bananas.

Top with pudding mixture, cool whip, nuts, bananas and chocolate.

ENJOY!!

Grilling for 3

I work outside the house on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday ten and a half hours so it's really important to keep dinners simple on those 4 nights.
I try to prepare the meals for those days when I'm off. Today I took time to prepare and precook some of Monday and Tuesdays dinners.

We had burgers and potatoes on the grill for dinner tonight.  Since the grill was already hot I threw on a couple of sausage links and some chicken legs.

The sausage links are going to get cut up into a New Orleans type spicy rice for Monday.

The chicken legs well there are SO many options with pre cooked chicken but I'm leaning towards just reheating them and mixing up some quick mac n cheese and some veggies for Tuesday.

So dinners are planned and as pre cooked as they can be until Wednesday when I'm off again.
It's a lot easier to make it through those long work days when I know dinner is taken care of. You don't have to have a strict concrete plan.  Just a small bit of thinking ahead is a real help for us here at our house.

Another Banana Bread recipe

I found this recipe yesterday while I was going through some of my Grandmother's recipes.  I had exactly 7 very ripe bananas that I knew needed turned into something soon so despite the heat I decided these two loaves of banana bread would be worth the AC working a little harder.  I was SO right.  This is a great recipe.  The flavor is awesome and it is so moist and buttery you don't even need to spread with butter.
I followed the recipe but added chopped walnuts to one loaf.

Banana Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
7 large ripe bananas, mashed
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs, slightly beaten
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions:
Makes two loaves of banana bread.
1. Cream the butter and sugar. Blend in the bananas, vanilla and eggs.
2. Sift together the dry ingredients.
3. Add to the bread mixture and mix until just combined. Pour into two greased 9x5 inch loaf pans.
4. Bake at 350F. Check on the bread after 35 minutes (it may take up to 60 minutes). Banana bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool the banana bread in the pan for 10 minutes then cool completely on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Recipe for left over Chicken #1

We eat a lot of chicken.  Definitely at least once a week, but usually more.  There are just SO many wonderful things that you can do with left over chicken.  It makes perfect sense that if you are going to cook some chicken, whether you bake it, grill it, fry it, roast it, saute it, however you decide to cook it...make a little extra for another meal.

Starting with this post, I have decided to keep track and write down all the different options that I can come up with for Chicken.  Now I'm not going to go crazy with this and start eating chicken every day or soliciting for all the chicken recipes I can find.  I won't even guarantee a weekly post. This is just a record for myself and maybe a little inspiration for you.

Yesterday we grilled Balsamic Chicken strips and I grilled extra for tonight.  It was cheap, fast, easy and SO delish.  ANY type of cooked chicken works for these. 

Corn Tortilla Chips
Slice or cube Chicken 
Salsa
Cheddar Cheese
Layer and Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes until cheese is melted and chicken is warm.

Layer nacho chips with sliced chicken, salsa and cheese.

Bake at 350 for approx. 15 minutes.  Add sour cream and ENJOY!!

Happy Memorial Day

All the fixings for coleslaw.

Grilled Brats and Balsamic Chicken Strips

Coleslaw

Grilled Sweet Potato rounds off the dinner.

Cole Slaw Recipe

1/3 Cup Diced Carrots
2 Cups Chopped Green Cabbage
1 Cup Chopped Purple Cabbage

1 Cup Mayo
2 Tablespoons Sugar
3 Tablespoons Vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Mix all ingredients together and chill at least 2 hours before serving.

For the Balsamic Chicken Strips
I just marinated sliced boneless chicken breasts in Balsamic Vinegar, Garlic Powder and Pepper and then grilled. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend filled with good food, family and friends.
A big THANK YOU to all of our service members and their families for the sacrifices they make.