Banana Bread

Look at me! I'm blogging again! I was taking a break from a design project and went into the kitchen to find two bananas that had about seen their day. So I quickly found a banana bread recipe and whipped it up while eating lunch!

In my rendition of this recipe, I decided to spice things up with some cinnamon and semi-sweet chocolate chips. You can't go wrong with either, and it's so nice outside, I was feeling domestic and bakerly (yes, that's an adjective!) and wanted to be fancy with my ingredients!

INGREDIENTS
2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C butter
3/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 C mashed overripe bananas
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
Semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture until just combined. You can add the cinnamon and/or chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Blueberry Monkey Bread

Good Morning! I usually don't have time to eat breakfast, regardless, I still enjoy it! Maybe not at 8 when I wake up, sometimes I eat it on the weekend, like as we speak. I'm sitting at my desk with the windows open (it's cool outside!), a cup of coffee, and eating the monkey bread I'm posting on here. It's quite relaxing.

Look at these beautiful photos! Doesn't it look amazing? It's such a nice breakfast treat. It's not super sweet, it's not super heavy, which is how I like my breakfast. I have a tendency to get sick in the morning if I eat something too rich or heavy, my stomach can't handle it. But these are definitely a good trade off, I could eat these often! Oh, and this is called monkey bread, and I found the recipe here.

INGREDIENTS
2 - 11 oz. packages Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Dough
1/2 C strawberries
1/2 C blueberries
1 tbsp sugar
1 - 8 oz. package of cream cheese, room temperature
2 tablespoons sugar

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Spray an 11-inch spring-form pan with cooking spray and set aside.

2. Place all berries, cream cheese, and 1 tablespoon of sugar into the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth (about 1 - 2minutes).

3. Lightly flour a surface, and roll out a crust and spread evenly with the berry mixture leaving a 1" border around the edges.

4. Roll the dough up like a jelly log or cinnamon roll and cut them into 1 inch pieces.

5. Place each piece of dough into the spring-form pan, placing them close together. Sprinkle dough with remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and bake for 35 minutes or until bread is lightly golden. Serve warm.

Cinnamon Strawberry Quinoa

Good morning my adventurers! Do you know what month it is? It's national breakfast month! Woohoo! I love breakfast! I wish I had more time to eat breakfast in the mornings, but I usually get up too late for class to fix anything.

I woke up this morning feeling like major meh. I just don't feel well at ALL! But I wanted breakfast because I was hungry, but nothing too sweet or too heavy so I wouldn't regret it later. I've had this recipe pinned forever, but just never had strawberries and quinoa at the same time. That's right! Quinoa for breakfast!

Quinoa is pronounced "Keen-Wah."

So here is the cool thing abut Quinoa. It's just plain delicious. I love it. It also goes with everything. Literally everything. And this morning I mixed it with strawberries!

INGREDIENTS
1 C water
1/2 C quinoa
1/3 C almond milk
1 C fresh strawberries
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Drizzle of honey (as a topping)

DIRECTIONS
1. In a pot over high heat place your 1 cup water and bring to a boil. Once water is boiling add in your dry quinoa. Return to a boil then reduce heat and let simmer for about 15 minutes.

2. At the 15 minutes pour in your 1/3 cup milk of choice and add in your remaining ingredients and flavorings and stir together for about another 5 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and pour into your bowl, drizzle some honey on top.

Lemon Biscottis

Good afternoon my lovely blogging foodies! I have come here today to announce that I am in love with biscottis. I bought some and fell in love with them! So I decided to brave making my own. I'm usually nervous about baking things that are out of my comfort zone but they turned out easier than expected!

I just simply Googled this recipe and went to work!