Pre-Hibernation Baking with Z and D

          Is winter here?  It sure got cold very quickly!  I keep expecting to see snowflakes falling from the sky.  Every morning is a fight to get my feet out of my warm bed and across the cold floor to get dressed for the day.  I've started putting clothes on a chair beside my bed so I can get dressed without touching the cold tile.  I even have a rug over the tile and it doesn't seem to make any difference!  I've never lived in a place with tile flooring before.  My parents have that fake almost plastic floor that looks sort of like real wood, and I thought that stuff gets cold, but that's nothing compared to tile.
     
          Then once I do get myself out of bed I'm bundling up with a sweater, my winter coat, and gloves heading to class.  Thankfully I've only had to scrape frost off of my windows once so far.  I told my mom a few weeks ago that it wasn't turtleneck season until the leaves fall off the trees and I have to scrape my car, well, I've worn turtlenecks the past three days.

          What I wear isn't the only thing that's changed with the weather.  I suddenly find myself uninterested in fruits and veggies.  At the start of the school year that was all I wanted to eat.  Now I want cheese, baked goods, and lots of meat.  I went grocery shopping today and loaded up on all my staple processed freezer foods: taquitos, chimichangas, orange chicken, chicken nuggets, and over the weekend D and I bought s'mores and snickers ice cream.  I feel like a squirrel trying to instinctively fatten up before the truly cold temperatures arrive.

          I had no intention of changing my eating habits. I was proud of myself for eating so well for so long.  But now I drool looking at all the baked goods on Pinterest and I have plans to start making them.  I should have seen this dietary switch coming, should have noticed the signs.  Two Saturday's ago I made myself a mug chocolate chip cookie.  That was my first warning sign.

Chocolate Chip Cookie in a Mug

by Melissa at No. 2 Pencil (link in title)

              Ingredients: 1 T melted butter                1 T sugar                1T packed brown sugar

                                   3 drops vanilla extract         pinch of salt            1 egg yolk

                                   scant 1/4 c. flour                 2 heaping T semi-sweet chocolate chips

              Instructions:  Combine butter, sugars, vanilla, and salt in your mug.  Add yolk and combine.  Stir in your flour, then chocolate chips.  Microwave for 40-60 seconds checking at 40 but not going beyond 60.  The mug will be hot and the cookie will continue to cook even after it is removed from the microwave so heating beyond 60 seconds will dry out your cookie as it continues to cook.  This is delicious while warm and adding a little ice cream doesn't hurt.  Just make sure you don't burn your mouth by being impatient.  This was just cooked in a mug that holds heat in very well.

          These delicious little mug cookies are perfect for when you want a cookie and not a couple dozen or don't want to wait for the oven to preheat.  The proof of how good these are is that I can never get a picture before I've already dug into it.  Mmmm. Perfection.  Grade: A+ of course!

          Next thing I know I'm craving one of Hardee's new burgers.  Have you tried them?  You know, the ones with the thick beef patty full of actual flavor, then at least two other types of meat piled on with cheese and little onion rings.  Oh those are good.  D and I picked ourselves up two of those (with a BOGO coupon) after he arrived and we pigged out on the 970 calorie burgers, don't ask how much fat.  That was pretty much all we'd eaten that day so we had to catch up on calories, right?

         I feel like a zombie.  Instead of brains though, I'm moaning, "baked goooods" and that leads me to my next food adventure.  Bananas are really cheap right now so I've been buying two entire bunches each week.    The three I let brown from last week finally browned enough and on Sunday I got the bread in the oven and put D in charge of watching the clock.

Deliciously Sweet Banana Bread

          I repinned this recipe after a good friend of mine pinned it with a positive review.  That good friend has given me much more than a good banana bread recipe, though, and I promise to tell that story sometime, although probably not soon.  I have made two loaves of banana bread already this semester and the other two were made with whole wheat flour.  I followed this recipe exactly (except that I cut it in half), and I am very glad that I did.  Whole wheat flour is great for health reasons, but the flavor and texture take some getting used to.  This banana bread is almost like a cake with how sweet it is.  I was working on homework so D was sweet enough to butter a slice for each of us and by the time I finished my homework and my one slice he'd already eaten a second.  I suppose I don't need to ask him if he liked it!  He even took some back with him to his school.  

          We just made this on Sunday and already there are only a few slices left.  I don't think I've ever eaten banana bread so quickly!  This one definitely gets a Grade: A+ from me and it makes me want to try out my other two banana bread recipes with white flour to get an accurate comparison.

Healthy Honey and Applesauce Banana Bread

8/31/2012 My first loaf of banana bread ever!

          I found this recipe from Kirsten B's 366 Days of Pinterest blog.  She tried it with success and I was looking for healthy food to get me off to a good start of the semester.  Kirsten said the honey flavor was a bit overpowering and I must agree with that.  I love honey, but there is such thing as too much.  However, I would make this recipe again because it is healthy, it is easy, and when eaten in moderation it is very tasty.  I give this recipe a Grade: B+.

Skinny Peanut Butter Banana Bread

9/28/2012

          I also got this recipe from Kirsten's blog and loved the idea of a banana bread that already had peanut butter inside it so I wouldn't have to slather it on each slice.  I discovered again that there can be too much of a good thing.  Because I used only whole wheat flour the texture was denser and drier than my most recent banana bread, but by the time I finished the loaf it had certainly grown on me and I can say it was good.  I drank a lot of milk that week with this bread.  Grade: B+ again.  So now I would like to try each of those recipes again using white flour instead.  I wonder what difference it will make.

          Want to know something slightly humorous?  When I was a kid I would eat banana bread but only because my mom put it on a plate in front of me.  Since I've been old enough to pick my own meals I usually skipped out on her banana bread.  Now I'm making it on a regular basis and quite enjoying it.  I guess I shouldn't have given up on it.  Mom makes lots of great baked goods.  Not only can she cook but she can bake like no other.  I love her pear bread.  I think I'll have to grab that recipe soon and give it a try now that I've mastered banana breads.  She also used to make a delicious cranberry bread around Christmas for me. That was my favorite.  I will have to pick up that recipe, too.

Breakfast Bagels

          Sadly, I do not have a picture to show you, but my amazing D made me dinner while I was doing homework.  He also did some dishes, and I believe he would have done them all if the scabs on his hands had allowed it.  Yep, I told you he is awesome!  

          I was not able to watch, but D tells me that the trick to making amazing breakfast bagels is putting butter on the bagel then cooking it on a frying pan until it gets nice and toasted and slightly browned.  Then you scramble some eggs with salt, pepper, and a little milk to make them fluffier.  Add egg to the bagel and place a slice of American cheese on top and it all melts together into mouth-watering perfection!  I am not a huge fan of eggs, but I ate one and a half of these bad boys which added up to more than 2 eggs, and I wish my stomach was big enough to have eaten more.  I will get D to make these for me again and I will watch and learn and get a picture to show you.  You really want to try these!  He says he usually adds some meat to them, but I was all out of meat.  No ham, no bacon, so sausage, not even sliced turkey.  I'll correct that for next time so I can have the full experience.  

          The last experience I want to share with you today is a chocolate and peanut butter banana shake idea that I had before but did differently today.  I know, this is already quite long.  This is what happens when I get very busy but have lots to tell you.  I don't want you missing out on anything!  I'm most anxious to start telling you about my grandest adventure but I want to make sure I have plenty of time to tell the story right.  So for now you get food stories because the gray sky hasn't inspired many outdoor adventures.

Chunky Monkey Shake

Blend 1 medium banana, 1 T peanut butter, 1 c. choc. milk and  1 c. ice.

          The first time I made this I used white milk with chocolate milk powder.  I thought that it was rather tasty and gave it a Grade: B+ because I was sure the flavor could be improved by using real chocolate milk. Today I followed the recipe exactly and I was disappointed.  The chocolate milk by itself is better.  I think the problem might be that the blender I have at my apartment is not nearly as good as my mom's blender so I had ice chunks floating around.  The peanut butter flavor also seemed to mask the chocolate which was quite disappointing.  I think I might still be recovering from the peanut butter overload from the peanut butter banana bread.  So today I give it a Grade: C but I think that reducing the ice and peanut butter quantities could greatly improve the flavor.  I am not giving up on this one, yet, it is really simple to make and I think it has a lot of potential to be delicious and still healthy.

          There you have it.  My recent food adventures along with some past ones.  I sincerely thank you for sticking around and reading.  If you are reading my blog for the first time, welcome, please check out my others and you'll start getting a feel for what I'm up to.  If you are a repeat reader, I am very grateful and thankful and pleased that you are interested enough to stick around.  I would love to hear from you so feel free to leave a comment just saying hi, or maybe you like one of my ideas or have a story of your own to share.  I love stories, telling them and hearing them and I'm really curious to know who my readers are.  So if right now you're too shy to say hi, that's ok. Hi =) to you.  I hope you are doing well.  Perhaps down the road as we go on more adventures together you'll want to share some of your own.  Until then, stay warm if you're in the northern hemisphere and enjoy your spring if you're in the southern half of the planet.  If you're in the middle, I suppose you're just always hot.  =D