Recipes Discovered

Cream Cheese Banana Bread Recipe

Since I finally conquered the chocolate chip cookie, I thought it was time to move on to my other nemesis, banana bread. Seth loved bananas probably more than he loves chocolate chip cookies, but I have yet to make a decent, or even edible, banana bread. I decided to try again with a completely different recipe, one that included cream cheese in the batter. I had my doubts, but there were so many positive reviews, I tried it anyway.

To start, I toasted pecans in the oven. Toasting nuts for me is always tricky, because I’m afraid I will burn them. I watched them pretty closely though, stirring them every couple minutes. They only took about 6 minutes to toast, and then I started the banana bread batter. I combined cream cheese and butter until it was creamy, and then added sugar and eggs. Once that was combined, I added the dry ingredients – whole wheat pastry flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt – alternately with the buttermilk. Once everything was mixed, I stirred in mashed bananas, the toasted pecans, and vanilla. I poured the batter into greased loaf pans (I used Baker’s Joy, which has the flour in the spray), sprinkled the rest of the untoasted pecans on top, and put the loaves in a 350 degree oven. >> Read more

While unpacking (still), I found an Irish cookbook that I had bought a long time ago. Seth’s family is very Irish, and I’ve always wanted to learn to cook traditional Irish food. I had Seth pick out recipes for a complete meal, and this is what he came up with.

We started with Mushroom Soup, which simply a lot of mushrooms cooked with potatoes, onions, garlic, and some stock. The recipe implies to blend the soup, but it leave it rather chunky, but Seth and I both prefer the soup blended smooth. It developed a very cream texture, similar to cream of mushroom soup. I used portobello, crimini, and white button mushrooms, which gave the soup great flavor. I served the soup with Brown Soda Bread, which is so incredibly easy to make. I mixed whole wheat flour with baking powder and buttermilk (I had to use more buttermilk than the recipe called for) together until a dough forms. I then kneaded the dough for a minute until it was smooth and baked until hollow. The bread was so good! It formed a nice crust on the outside, but was so soft and smooth on the inside. Seth wanted me to make it everyday. >> Read more

Oatmeal Wheat Quick Rolls Recipe

I wanted to make rolls to go along with a salad for dinner the other night. Refrigerator rolls in the can are easy, but for just Seth and me, that’s a lot of rolls. They have the individual rolls now in the freezer section, but I don’t like the taste. Making bread from scratch takes a couple of hours, which sometimes I don’t have. I did an Internet search for quick breads, and found this oatmeal wheat bread recipe that sounded pretty good, and it only took 20 minutes to bake. The recipe is simple – ground oatmeal, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt are mixed with honey, oil, and milk to make the dough. I left about a tablespoon of the oatmeal whole so it was more visible, and I also had to add a couple extra tablespoons of flour to get the dough to come together. I divided the dough into roll instead of one loaf, and baked them for about 8 minutes until they were golden brown. The recipe was simple, but the taste was incredible. The rolls were crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and had a nice nutty flavor. I don’t think I’ll ever have to buy boughten rolls again!

Oatmeal Wheat Quick Rolls Recipe

I know this sounds insane, but I really wanted peanut butter toast today and with no toaster, my options were limited. I did the only thing I could think of – I toasted by bread with a hair dryer. Crazy, right? Even crazier, it actually worked. I figured it would only warm the bread, but it actually created a toasty edge. It didn’t brown the bread obviously, but it made it crispy, and it only took about 30 seconds on each side. So there you have it – blow dryer toast.

Rolls Recipe

Cinnamon Butter Recipe 1 (brown sugar)

Cinnamon Butter Recipe 2 (honey)

Texas Roadhouse recently opened a restaurant in our area. It’s an interesting restaurant, appealing to a younger crowd with line dancing and throwing peanut shells on the floor. While the whole meal was actually pretty good, the fresh rolls were outstanding and the whipped cinnamon butter was amazing. After a quick Internet search, I found a recipe for the rolls and three different recipes for the butter.

Starting with the butter, I decided to try 2 of the 3 recipes I found. One called for brown sugar and the other called for honey. If I would have thought about it, I would have known the restaurant didn’t use the one with the brown sugar because it would have been gritty, but I didn’t think that far ahead. The third recipe that I didn’t try called for corn syrup and sweetened condensed milk. It didn’t sound quite right, which is why I just made the other two. >> Read more