Chocolate Banana Bread

So last week I had a post planned for every day of the week. Unfortunately, my trip to Vegas was just as exhausting, time consuming and awesome as ever, and so I got around to writing and posting all of zero of said posts. But this week I'm back in action and ready to rock! I'll have some catch up posts coming up, but today is Secret Recipe Club reveal day!

I was assigned Our Eating Habits this month, and there were so many recipes that I wanted to try. I wanted something simple and utilized ingredients I had on hand, since there has been little to no food shopping in this house as of late. I did have 2 very, very ripened bananas that needed to be used and luckily Jamie has lots of banana recipes. I chose this chocolate banana bread, which was a perfectly simple recipe that was also great for Penelope to help with. She peeled the bananas, measured out baking soda and salt, poured in flour and other dry ingredients, and of course did her favorite part, the mixing.

Though this is a bread recipe, I made it into 2 small round cakes. I love cake and loved the idea of this one recipe stretching farther than just 1 loaf. I used an 8 inch cake pan and a 4.5 inch cake pan. We enjoyed the small cake this weekend and I froze the larger size for our annual campout next weekend. I think it would be fantastic with a little cream cheese frosting, and a perfect dessert to share. Thanks Jamie for this fun twist on classic banana bread!

Chocolate Banana Bread

Adapted from Our Eating Habits

1 C sugar

2 eggs

1/3 C vegetable oil

1 1/4 C mashed bananas

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 C all-purpose flour

1/2 C unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease your pan(s).

In a large mixing bowl, mix together with a fork or wooden spoon the wet ingredients: sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, mashed bananas and vanilla extract.

Pour in the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.

Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Pour into prepared pans and bake for 20-25 minutes (for 2 smaller cake pans). For a standard loaf pan, bake for 60-65 minutes.

Top with frosting or powdered sugar, if desired!

I sprinkled on a bit of confectioners sugar ran through a sieve.

Enjoy!

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Taco Pizza

 

How was your weekend? I spent the weekend in Dallas celebrating the wedding of one of my oldest friends. It was such a wonderful weekend and I'll have a recap soon, but today I want to talk about pizza. As in PIZZA!

We eat a lot of pizza around here. We have a great spot down the block from us who we order from more often than I'd like to admit. I also make my own pizza a lot, and typically have a store-bought dough in my fridge at any given time for a quick and absolutely delicious Friday night dinner. I've been making a lot of cauliflower pizza recently which feels oh-so-decadent while on Dukan. So many options, but lately I've been wanting to change it up a bit. Enter the taco pizza. 

Secret Recipe Club came at a great time because I was on the hunt to change up our repetoire, and low and behold, I stumbled on Heather's recipe for taco pizza. Heather blogs about all kinds of amazing recipes that her kids love and say they are 'yummy to my tummy' --->so adorable! Featured on her blog, It's Yummy to my Tummy, Heather made a pizza crust from scratch for this and though I've been wanting to try that (I even bought active dry yeast, but am too scared to use it), I decided to make the taco pizza on a cauliflower crust in the interest of keeping it Dukan-friendly.

The result was nothing short of AWESOME. Even Shaun really enjoyed it and I know he kindly goes along with my cauliflower pizza though he would never choose that over the real deal if I wasn't pushing it on him. I think we both agreed that this guiltlessly elevated our weekday pizza night and this will now be a staple in our repetoire!

Taco Pizza

*Adapted from It's Yummy to My Tummy

1 pizza crust, of your choice

1 C tomato sauce

1 pkg taco seasoning

3/4 C water

1 lb. lean ground beef or turkey

1 C cheddar or Mexican blend cheese, shredded

Shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes & plain Greek yogurt for topping

Have your pizza crust cooked and prepared on a baking sheet. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a skillet, brown the beef or turkey and then mix in the taco seasoning and water. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until much of the liquid has burned off.

Meanwhile, pour sauce all over your prepared crust. Top with 2/3 taco meat, spreading it all over the top of the sauce. Sprinkle cheese on top. Place in oven until the cheese is melted, about 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and top with shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes and Greek yogurt, if desired. Using a pizza cutter, cut into squares or slices and serve immediately!

Thanks to Heather for this super delicious and very filling dinner! We also had leftovers, which almost never happens with cauliflower pizza since it's so thin. By tacoifying the pizza, we made it stretch a lot farther!

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No Bake Cookie Butter (or Nutella) Cookies

How was your weekend?

I spent two days outside and enjoying the fresh, open air and it was nothing short of glorious. Penelope and I spent Saturday in Brooklyn with my sister Kimberly and then Sunday we had family day in Jersey City. I'll have a full recap later this week, but I really wanted to talk about cookies today. These no bake cookies, specifically.

Have you ever made a no bake dessert? So often I find that it sounds great from the outside looking in. To me, a no bake dessert sounds like it would be simpler, faster and easier. A quick throw-it-together situation. But...I've also often found that once I read through the recipe, it doesn't really seem that easy or care-free. Perhaps I just need to shift my thinking. But! This is not that recipe.

 

No, this recipe is no bake and it's easy and quick and churns out a no bake batch of cookies that were the perfectly sweet end to a wonderful weekend. I found these on Pumpkins & Peonies and decided they'd be a great pick for Secret Recipe Club! I love SRC because it forces me out of my comfort zone. And now I have a simple no bake cookie recipe to show for it! Jess has so many great recipes and beautiful photos that it was hard to choose just one recipe, but I think I picked a winner. Though the original recipe calls for Nutella, I went with cookie butter because I had it on hand and because I wanted to make these nut-free for bringing some to work. They were great with cookie butter, and I bet they'd be amazing with Nutella...or peanut butter!

No Bake Cookie Butter Cookies

*Adapted from Pumpkins & Peonies

1/2 C butter

1/2 C milk

1 1/2 C sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 C cookie butter

3 C quick cooking oats

Prepare 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a saucepan, melt butter and whisk in the milk and sugar. Bring to a rolling boil. Let boil for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla and cookie butter.

Stir in oats with a rubber spatula.

Let cool for 1-2 minutes.

Scoop out tablespoon-sized blobs of the cookie dough and let sit to cool and firm up. I fit 12 on a cookie sheet.

Let cool and enjoy!

Jess said she yielded about 30 cookies, but I only made 24. So if you want more, just make them smaller! These are super sweet and rich, so smaller might be a better serving :) I used a small cookie scoop for mine. Another note: these came out very sweet, so next time I'd plan to use only 1 cup of sugar, or even 3/4 cup. Thanks Jess for this great recipe! I can't wait to share them with my office!

Happy Cookie Monday!

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