Extreme Banana Nut Bread

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups mashed overripe bananas
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the butter or margarine and sugar until smooth. Stir in the bananas, eggs, and walnuts until well blended. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mixture, and stir just until blended. Divide the batter evenly between the two loaf pans.
3. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted into the crown of the loaf comes out clean. Let the loaves cool in the pans for at least 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack, and cool completely. Wrap in aluminum foil to keep in the moisture. Ideally, refrigerate the loaves for 2 hours or more before serving.

 Recipe from All Recipes, picture from my kitchen.

Banana Crumb Muffins

So, every morning before I go to the gym (not that I am good and go every morning) I normally eat a banana or apple. Well, for some reason the banas that I bought got rip way earlier that I had planned on. Therefore, I needed something to make with them that I could grab and eat on my way out. I saw these on a friend's blog and decided that they would be perfect. I took the left overs into work on Monday and the coworkers loved them. they all wanted to know when I would be making them again.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 bananas, mashed

3/4 cup white sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.

In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

Bake in a preheated oven for 10 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Recipe from April's Blog and Picture from my kitchen.

All Around Good Smoothie

I have been working out and I have read several places that you need to up your protein intake when working out to boost your metabolism. I also had a banana that I needed to get rid of so this seemed like a great option. I could not get Lenny to try it though because he won't touch any smoothies with yogurt.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup nonfat milk
• 1/2 cup fat-free plain yogurt
• 1/2 frozen banana, peeled and chopped (I used a whole banana)
  
• 2 tablespoons powdered protein supplement
• 1 1/2 tablespoons flax seed
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1/2 cup frozen strawberries

Directions:

1. In a blender, blend the milk, yogurt, banana, protein supplement, flax seed, honey, and strawberries until smooth.
   

Recipe from allrecipes, picture from my kitchen.

Banana Bars

I had four really, really ripe bananas that I needed something to do with. I saw this recipe on April's Blog so I decided to make it since it took three bananas and that only gave me one more banana to get rid of. I took this to our Church's Wednesday night dinner and everyone thought that they were amazing.

Bars -

Ingredients:

½ cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream (I used light)
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (I used three ripe bananas)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 10 x 15 inch jellyroll pan or one 9X13 pan and an additional 8X8 pan. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; stir into the batter. Finally, mix in the mashed banana. Spread evenly into the prepared pan(s). Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow bars to cool completely before frosting.

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 cup white sugar (you can use either granulated sugar or confectioners’ sugar - the confectioners’ sugar tends to dissolve better and not be as grainy but either one works fine) (I used confectioners)
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream

Directions:

In a large bowl combine cream cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. Set aside. In another medium bowl, beat whipped cream until stiff peaks form (it helps to use a chilled bowl and chilled beaters). Fold whipped cream into cream cheese mixture.

Recipe from Allrecipes.com and picture from my kitchen

Banana Nut Bread

I am always looking for new banana bread recipes. When I saw this recipe on Katie's Blog, Good Things Catered, I just had to try it. I still have a couple more recipes to try, but this one was very good.

Ingredients:
1/2 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. mashed bananas (about 3 medium; the browner, the better!)
3 Tbsp sour cream
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 c. walnuts (I really like Banana Nut Bread so I added some nuts that I had on hand)

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-In bowl of stand mixer, cream shortening and sugar.
-Beat in eggs one at a time; then bananas, sour cream, and lemon juice.
-Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
-Slowly add dry ingredients to mixture.
- Add nuts.
-Pour into greased and floured 9x5x3 loaf pan.
-Bake for 60 minutes.