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!

An InLinkz Link-up

Mediterranean Egg Salad

It's Monday again. Bleh.

At least this week, we aren't fighting daylight savings...though I had an epiphany yesterday when my mom and I were talking about the trials and tribulations of daylight savings. I noted that last week, I just felt totally thrown off, unhappy and kind of depressed. In fact, one night, I came home, put pajamas on immediately and told Shaun that I just needed to go to sleep (right after Penelope went to bed). My mom said that she always feels a little blue during the spring forward week. I never knew this was a thing, and maybe it's just us, but now I'm curious if this is in fact a thing, like seasonal depression? I can fall back like a champ (my mom and I agreed it's the best day of the year), but something about springing forward just doesn't sit well with me. Anyone else feeling blue over the last week?

In any event, and on an unrelated note, can we talk about egg salad for a moment? I always forget how much I love egg salad. When it comes to hard boiled eggs, I can take them or leave them. They are typically relegated to those weeks when I'm going relatively carb-free, they usually smell unpleasant, and I really just don't eat them unless I have to. Egg salad, on the other hand, is another story. I usually make mine with an egg white to yolk ratio of 2 to 1. I love it with just a tiny bit of mayo and dijon mustard and a lot of salt for good measure. Served open faced on toast, what is better than that?

But then I saw this Mediterranean Egg Salad last week on Living the Gourmet. Talk about turning up the volume on a potentially dusty classic. As part of my Secret Recipe Club assignment for this month, I knew I had to give the Mediterranean Egg Salad a try. I'm so happy I did.

I really loved this version. No mayo, no mustard. It's still just moist enough and the added flavors of lemon juice, capers and red onion made this a truly special lunch. I left out a few of the ingredients that the original recipe called for (anchovies - because anchovies - and sundried tomatoes because I just forgot to buy them), but I hope you try any variation of this recipe. I think it might be my new standard. I could never do Catherine's unbelievable photos justice, but I hope she knows how thankful I am for this beautiful recipe and how much I enjoyed perusing her blog, chock full of tempting recipes!

 

Mediterranean Egg Salad

*Adapted from Living the Gourmet

7-8 hard boiled egg whites + 3-4 yolks

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1 Tbsp capers + 1 Tbsp caper juice

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp paprika, divided

2 tsp olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon 

1/4 red onion, thinly sliced

large lettuce leaves (romaine, bibb)

bread, if desired

Combine the hard boiled egg whites and yolks in a bowl and roughly chop. Gently mix in the celery, capers + juice, salt, pepper 1/4 tsp of paprika, olive oil and lemon juice. Serve atop lettuce leaves or toasted or crusty bread. Garnish with red onion slices and the remaining 1/4 tsp of paprika. 

Devour promptly.

While this is a dish casual enough for Sunday lunch on a warm spring day, I also think this would make a great party appetizer on tiny toasts, made into deviled eggs or on teeny lettuce wraps! Thanks Catherine for this lovely recipe!

Do you like egg salad? How do you make it?

Do you ever suffer from the daylight savings blues?

An InLinkz Link-up