Healthy Banana Bread

We do a lot of posts about cooking... and mostly we do dinners, yet the web address of this blog is bake, cook and grill. I thought I would add a baking recipe today. I adapted this healthy banana bread recipe from one from allrecipes.com.

Adrienne's Banana Bread

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons ground flax meal
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 cup sweetener (I just used white sugar this time)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4-1/2 cup milk (based on how dry it seems)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and flax meal and stir with a whisk.

In a separate bowl combine yogurt, sweetener, egg, and vanilla.

Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine. Add the bananas and the milk, as needed.

Pour batter in an 8x4 in greased bread pan and bake for 1 hour.

Makes 10 servings. 236 calories, 31 carbs, 6g protein, 4g fiber per serving.

Tortellini Soup

Tortellini soup is one of our favorite quick and easy dinners. Especially if you use jarred sauce and dried tortellini (we use the kind from Trader Joes).

1 regular size jar marinara pasta sauce

4 cups chicken broth

1 package dried or fresh tortellini

Diced zucchini and chopped Italian herbs, optional

Mix pasta sauce and chicken broth and heat to boil. Add tortellini and cook according to package directions. Add herbs and zucchini near the end of cooking time.

The only issue with this soup is that the leftover tortellini soaks up a lot of the liquid, so it's best the first day. We still like the leftovers, it's just not as soupy. 

Finally cooking again!

It is nice to be cooking again! I've made three meals since I had Levi... Chicken fajitas with black beans and guac, vegetarian chili with cornbread and a Tex-Mex meal made with cornbread (yes, again) and seasoned beef.

I just finished eating the cornbread and beef meal and I highly suggest you guys try it, it is really good! Make up the cornbread recipe that I linked above. The first time I made it I used honey instead of white sugar and I liked the honey flavor in it. This time I did sugar, still really good. Put half of the cornbread batter in the bottom of a greased 8X8 inch pan. Cook 1 pound of ground beef on a skillet, add the seasoning linked above and some water and let simmer until the water has thickened up. Shred some cheddar on the top of the layer of batter, put the seasoned beef on next, some more shredded cheese and then the second half of batter on top. You can chop up some onions and mix them into the cornbread with some frozen corn or just sprinkle chopped onions on the top. Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes. It's really basic and you can customize it easily. I hope you try it! I am sure Chris will like it.

Hamburgers

Hamburgers are not very fancy but it's what we've been eating a lot of lately. We bought a 12 pack of organic beef patties from Costco for a BBQ but then the BBQ fell through so we've just been grilling them up for dinner. We add pepper jack cheese, tomatoes from the garden, and some bibb lettuce. We also are still drowning in zucchini so we usually just slice some up with some veggie seasoning and grill that as well.

Today we are having a couple friends over for, you guessed it, more hamburgers. I'm going to try a pinterest recipe for Zucchini Tots to go with them, and I'm going to make my modified lower-fat Zucchini Brownies recipe for dessert. We'll probably cut up a watermelon as well as a side dish.

I am very excited for the green Thai curry I am making tomorrow, with Shiitake coconut soup. Stay tuned! :)

Pulled Pork, Roasted Sausage and Stromboli

Yes, baked beans are yummy! Check allrecipes.com.

So, the recipe for the pulled pork sandwiches is quite easy. She says she buys the pork at the store, "Country Ribs." She puts the meat and some BBQ sauce in the slow cooker and cooks on low for 8 hours. She sauce soaks into the meat and the meat pulls apart. Then you can add more sauce if you like and put it inside hamburger buns.

Another friend brought over two meals. One was called Lazy Sunday Casserole, which is roasted sausage and veggies. That one was amazing! It is like the definition of comfort food. Try it! The other was Stromboli. That was also really good and the whole thing is homemade, so you could use your pizza dough recipe and put whatever inside.

Next we are expecting homemade mac and cheese with salad, chicken casserole with corn and fruit and whatever is left over from the baby shower. I will let you know how everything is!

Grilled Chicken with Veggies & Beans

So yesterday Chris and I skipped lunch and just had a feast of a dinner. We had chicken that we grilled with some "Chicken Grill Seasoning" as a rub, corn on the cob, grilled zucchini, canned baked beans, and some garlic bread that we picked up at the grocery store. I feel like I haven't had baked beans since living with Mom and Dad, but they were soooo good. I must find a recipe for them. :)

Pulled Pork Sandwiches and Cold Noodle Salad

Last night someone brought over pulled pork sandwiches with hamburger buns and BBQ sauce, cold pasta salad with shredded cheese, bell peppers and cherry tomatoes and some Oreo cookies for dessert. Totally a winning dinner for me! I love pulled pork and it was really yummy! I have asked her for the recipe. The pasta salad seemed simple, just cooked pasta with shredded cheese and veggies, no mayo or anything like that. I liked it a lot. We ate the Oreos but since Jonathan's friend Ben was here we decided to roast marshmallows and have Smores as well. A very good meal night. Let me know if you want the pulled pork recipe.