Another Banana Bread recipe

Are you wondering what to do with these sad looking bananas?

Make banana bread! I have a serious love for sweet breads. My Mom makes amazing carrot bread, zucchini bread, pumpkin bread and banana breads. I will post these recipes soon as they are to die for. In the meantime, I had a hankering for banana bread and wanted to try a new recipe. Here it is, folks! It is absolutely fabulous...moist yet with a crunchy "crust," the flavors just pop in your mouth. I put about 2-3 T. of Chia seeds in this recipe...you don't have to add these if you don't have them on hand, but I do love how they add a little crunch to the bread and also add great nutrition.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened

3oz whipped cream cheese

1 cup brown sugar

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 egg

1/4 cup fat-free plain greek yogurt

1 1/2 cups flour

3 T. chia seeds

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt


Directions:

Preheat over to 350. Grease a loaf pan.

Cream butter, cream cheese, and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in mashed banana, yogurt, and egg and mix ’til smoothe. Stir in dry ingredients. Bake for 60-75 minutes.

Devour.

Doesn't get much better than a peanut butter and apple butter banana sandwich with a big glass of milk...oh and some carrots for good measure ;)

A couple yummy recipes from the weekend...

As I mentioned in a post below, we had our friends, Lynn and Amit over for dinner Saturday night. Lynn graciously brought over an appetizer which was a Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon Chips and she brought a Kale and Mango salad. Both of these dishes were to die for!!!!!! They were seriously so wonderful and I will DEF. be making them again.

Here is the Salsa recipe and here is the Kale recipe. If you are looking for an appetizer to make or bring to a party, this is the one! It is light and cool on a hot summer day. Lynn cut out the sugar on the recipe and she didn't put in the full amount of jelly and it was great---still very sweet from all of the fruit. Also the kale recipe is just as amazing. The mango pairs perfectly with the kale...who would've thunk? If you can, make it a day or two ahead...it tastes better the next day! Lynn didn't use pumpkin seeds with it, but used sliced almonds...delish.

Go and make these recipes this summer, they WON'T disappoint!

Happy Memorial Day!

It's been a weekend of yard work for the Hoffman's! We spent all three days working in our yard, and man, we are tired now!

As some of you may or may not know, we bought our first house exactly one year ago. Our house was foreclosed and in awful condition when we bought it. Thankfully, the hubs and I had visions in our head of what would come of this house with such great potential. Within one year of owning this home, we have remodeled the kitchen, half bath, and one full bathroom, we have painted every square inch of the house inside, put in new flooring in the downstairs hallway, kitchen, half bath, laundry room and full bathroom. We put new carpet in one guest bedroom (the rest of the house has hardwood floors), had new siding put on our house, and took down about 20 trees. We have probably done more than that, but I will leave you with this for now.

These past few days my husband has been grinding the stumps from the trees that we cut down. After that huge project was done, we began working on the front bed of our house. We finished that today and have a couple more beds to go. We finished the beds in the very front of our house about a month ago which you can somewhat see from the pictures below.

Here are before and after pictures from the front of our house:

This picture was taken on the day that we closed...

This picture was taken on this past Saturday before yard work was done...

This picture was taken this evening...almost done (not the best picture, but you get the point)! Mulch is still needed, but almost there!

Here is the hubs hard at work with the stump grinder:

Of course our furbabies were with us for some of this journey:

After all of this hard work we were ready for a good meal. Hello hamburgers, grilled corn on the cob and watermelon!

What did you do this Memorial Day weekend? Did you relax or go, go, go like us?

**Also Happy, Happy Birthday to my wonderful brothers, Stephen and Michael...I love you!

Memorial Day Feast!

Although it's techincally not Memorial Day yet, we celebrated early. :) The hubs and I had our good friends, Lynn and Amit over for dinner last night. Lynn brought an AMAZING appetizer shown below and a fabulous side to go with our dinner as well. She always finds the greatest recipes! As soon as I get the recipes from her, I will post!!!! The appetizer was Fruit Salsa with homemade cinnamon pita chips...mmmm...

For dinner we had Cornell Barbeque grilled chicken, a kale and mango salad (thanks to Lynn---SO delicious!!), potato salad, and fresh watermelon. It was the perfect cookout! The Cornell barbeque chicken recipe is from my Mom. She makes this chicken quite often in the summer, yet I had never tried it before. I marinated the chicken for 24 hours and it was fantastic!!!! I doubled the recipe since we cooked 5 chicken breasts, and, I figured that more could only make it taste better. Daniel did a great job of grilling it and it just exploded with flavors in your mouth. The potato salad is an old recipe from a college roomie of mine at Clemson. She would always make this potato salad, and I loved it. I had forgotten about it until recently when I was going through some recipes.

Cornell Barbeque Chicken:

½ cup canola oil
1 cup cider vinegar
1 egg
1 Tbsp (or more) poultry seasoning
½ tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp. Salt (sometimes I use a little less but you do need it)

Mix above and pour over chicken and marinate for as long as you like. Grill or bake.

June's Potato Salad:

5 lb. Russet potatoes, boiled and still firm
1 large green pepper, chopped
1 large yellow pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
8 slices low-sodium bacon, cooked and chopped
about 17 oz. low-fat sour cream (I used fat-free plain greek yogurt!)
about 12 oz. low-fat Italian dressing
salt and pepper to taste
1 T. olive oil

-Boil potatoes until firm but not mushy. Chop potatoes. Cook bacon, drain fat from pan and quickly wipe w/paper towel (you want some grease/cracklins in pan). Add olive oil to pan and heat. Saute onion and peppers until translucent (onion) and very bright (peppers). In a separate bowl, mix sour cream (or yogurt) and dressing. Add a little at a time until desired flavor. In dressing bowl, mix in peppers, onions, bacon, salt and pepper to taste. Pour dressing mixture over chopped potatoes and mix gently.

-Serve hot or cold. Better the next day!

Now for dessert, cause you just gotta have it...Chocolate Cake. nom, nom, nom. My best friend, Charlotte, gave me this chocolate cake mix for a housewarming gift. It was to die for!!!!!!! So moist and amaaaazing. I used regular vanilla frosting and topped the cake with an American theme of blueberry's and strawberry's. YUM. Perfect ending to a perfect dinner with fabulous company!

After such a delicious meal...we all felt like this...

Taco Salad

Taco Salad's always remind me of summer...tons of fresh veggies...a light meal for the humid and hot days.

Ingredients:

1 can corn, drained
1 fresh avocado
Low-Fat cheddar cheese (or soy cheese!)
Fat Free plain Greek yogurt (used in place of sour cream)
1 green pepper, diced
Salsa
Whole grain chips
Bag of lettuce
Ground turkey (make sure to get the low-fat kind!)
Packet of taco seasoning

Directions:

-Brown turkey in skillet, then add taco seasoning and let simmer for about 5 minutes.

-While turkey is browning, cut up pepper and get the other toppings ready.
-When turkey is done, place lettuce on plate and add toppings as you choose!

Easy, delicious and nutritious! Enjoy...Happy Friday and Happy Memorial Day! I will be back soon with a Memorial Day dish :) Stay tuned!

Bowl of Deliciousness

The hubs is out of town, so the girly meals are on. For dinner tonight I made a Kale and Sweet Potato Brown Rice bowl. Yum. Perfect dinner. I found the initial recipe here from Eating Bird Food. The only changes I made were that I used canned chickpeas...in the peanut sauce I didn't add brown rice syrup b/c I didn't have any on hand, and I did not put my peanut sauce ingredients in a blender...just mixed it up with a spoon until it became creamy. This meal was great and very filling! I have extra peanut sauce too, which I am excited about and wondering what to add it to next as it is wonderful. I am not the biggest chickpea lover, but in this dish it works great and compliments the other flavors. Mixed in with everything else, you barely even taste them.

P.S.- Here's to Oprah's last show today! I have loved watching her over the years. If you want to see a funny Oprah clip, go to youtube and type in "Oprah and Paula Deen have fun baking." It is hilarious! (For some odd reason blogger wasn't letting me post the link here) I am about to watch today's show thanks for DVR. In Oprah's words, "To God be the Glory!"

Delicious Bruschetta and Spinach Pasta

Not even sure where to begin this post, but this dinner was SO good!!!! My Dad came over tonight for dinner since Mom was out of town and the three of us enjoyed this fabulous meal. Yes, that is an egg you see in the top picture. I was a little nervous of how an egg would taste over pasta, but it was incredible. A fried, runny egg exploding over whole wheat pasta soaked in a bruschetta and spinach sauce...ah.ma.zing. This dinner was also great because it was A) easy B) quick to make C) CHEAP (!!!) D) healthy! 4 things that I love when cooking!

I found this recipe off a blog I enjoy reading, CookinFanatic. To find the recipe, go here. I followed the recipe to a tee, except I used a whole box of pasta (it was 16 oz. I think) and it still turned out great. Seriously go make this meal ASAP...it will be a hit! Oh, it also looks like it is super fancy and hard to make, so serve this to guests---very impressive, yet secretly easy. :)

I served this dish with a strawberry/spinach salad and garlic rolls...mmmmm. For dessert I made a banana cream pie. I used to recipe on the box of the banana pudding box but added melted chocolate on the bottom of the pie and then added caramel on the top of the pie...yes, I love my sugar...it's a problem. ;) This was also a hit and the perfect ending to a perfect meal.

Tanner (my parents dog) and Zeus (our pug) were snuggling while we ate (they are best buddies) and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of them!

Have a great weekend, everyone!