Low Fat, Sweet Banana Bread

Bananas.  

 They're healthy, they taste good, and they're super cheap. But I hate how they go bad so quickly! If I have very ripe bananas that I haven't eaten yet, I hate to throw them away. That's why I make banana bread!

Adapted from here

Ingredients:
• non-stick cooking spray
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 T brown sugar
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1/4 c applesauce
• 1/3 c skim milk
• 1 t vegetable oil
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 3/4 c flour
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Spray a bread pan with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar until fluffy. Add liquid ingredients in and mix well.

In another bowl, mix together dry ingredients. Combine with liquid ingredients.

Pour batter into bread pan and bake for about 60 minutes or until inside is completely baked.

Fabulous! I love it!

Healthy Zucchini Raisin Bread

I avoided buying a food processor for years.  I hate having too many appliances clutter up the kitchen and I feel like they never get used enough.  But after struggling without one for way too long, I finally gave in.  I actually bought it with this recipe in mind and I was really impressed with how amazing it worked!  I had no idea how easy it would be to shred zucchini!  My goal is to use the food processor at least a few times a year, so this is a good start!

Adapted from Healthy Seasonal Recipes

(Makes 2 loaves)
Ingredients:
• non-stick cooking spray
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3.5 cups shredded zucchini (I used four zucchinis in a food processor to make this much)
• 1 pound zucchini, shredded (about 3 ½ cups)
• 3/4 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Spray loaf pans with cooking spray.

3. In a large bowl, whisk flours, spices, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

4.  Mix in eggs, oil, honey, vanilla, and zucchini. Add in the pats and raisins and stir gently.

5.  Pour mixture into loaf pans and bake for about 50 minutes or until baked throughout.  (I also made one batch in a 9x9 pan and that only needed to bake for about 35 minutes.)

Swiss Cheese Beer Bread

We love beer in our house and use any excuse to crack open a cold one after the little guy is asleep! Unfortunately, Hubby picked out some weird beer that he heard was good from a friend and it turned out to be terrible. I hate wasting, so I tried to find some fun ways to use up the extras - beer and cheese bread!

From Taste of Home

Ingredients:
• 6 oz. shredded Swiss cheese

3 cups flour

3 tablespoons sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 bottle (12 ounces) beer

2 tablespoons melted butter

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and pepper. Stir beer into dry ingredients just until moistened. Mix in shredded cheese.

Transfer to a greased loaf pan.

Bake at 375° for about 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cranberry Banana Pumpkin Bread

I love baking bread. It's so easy, you can pretty much put whatever you want in it, and it always turns out yummy! Here's one of the new breads that I really liked...

Adapted from here

Ingredients:
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 banana

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Beat the butter, brown sugar, pumpkin, cranberries, egg, vanilla, and banana in another bowl until smooth. Stir in dry mixture.

Pour batter into 9x5 bread pan.

Bake for about 1 hour or until cooked throughout.

Let cool and enjoy!

Tasty Cheddar Biscuits

I don't know about you, but I love me some Red Lobster biscuits. Nothing compares to those things and you can never replicate them...but you can try! This comes close and I definitely pigged out on them for dinner one day!

Recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod

Ingredients:
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup fresh chopped cilantro

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Mix the butter into the dry ingredients. For me, it worked well to let the butter sit out for a bit to warm up. Blend until the mixture has pea size chunks of butter left.

Pour in the milk and mix until the ingredients are moist. Don't overmix.

Gently stir in the cheese, garlic, and cilantro.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. With a spoon or your hands, scoop the biscuits onto the baking sheet. For jumbo biscuits, use about 1/3 cup of dough. For smaller biscuits, use about 3 tablespoons of dough.

Bake the jumbo biscuits for 15-18 minutes. Bake the smaller biscuits for 12-15 minutes. Let them bake until they are golden brown and cooked throughout.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

I promise they'll be eaten up before you know it!

Lisa's Special Grilled Swiss Cheese with Apples

This is my special twist on the good old American favorite grilled cheese. I don't know where this idea came from, but it popped into my head one day at work. We had all the ingredients at home and ready to go!

Ingredients:
• slices of bread
• slices of swiss cheese
• butter
• slices of apple

Lightly butter both sides of bread.

Then create the sandwich with layers of cheese and sliced apples and top it with a second piece of bread.

On low heat, place the sandwich on a frying pan and grill until the bottom is golden brown.

Flip the sandwich to the other side to grill the top. When both sides are grilled and the cheese is melted, you're ready to eat!

YUM and super easy!

Pumpkin Favorites

I have a confession.

I don't like fall.

I get sad that summer is ending and fall makes me think of cold & snow coming quickly. But the one thing I DO like about fall is pumpkin! You can never get enough pumpkin! From crafts, to pumpkin costumes, to pumpkin spice lattes...they're the only thing I love about fall!

In honor of my love of anything pumpkin, here's some of my favorite crafts and recipes. Scroll down to the bottom of my blog and click on pumpkin to see all my pumpkin-related posts.

Burlap Pumpkins

And more pumpkins...


Pumpkin Fluff

Pumpkin Cornbread

Pumpkin Spice Yogurt

Pumpkin Pecan Bread

Banana Caramel Challah Bread Pudding

This is one of those recipes that tastes amazing, but doesn't look as good in pictures. Bread pudding probably isn't the most photogenic food in the world because it looks like mush, but it's SO good! This one is also low fat so you have my permission to indulge! It's the perfect dessert for breaking the fast 0n Yom Kippur coming up later this week or any other occasion.

Ingredients:
• 2/3 cup skim milk
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups cubed challah bread
• cooking spray
• 1 cup mashed banana (about 2 bananas)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 4 tablespoons fat free caramel topping
• powdered sugar

Mix the first 4 ingredients in a bowl.

Pour bread cubes into a 9x9 baking pan covered with baking spray.

Pour liquid mixture over bread cubes and top with mashed banana.

Sprinkle mixture with sugar.

Chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

Before serving, top with caramel sauce and powdered sugar.

Really, really yummy!

Delicious Cottage Cheese Bread

Don't worry, I'm still here and the baby is still baking! We had a really bad storm over the weekend, lost power AGAIN, and our basement flooded. It was a blast : ) We're still recovering and cleaning up from the mess, but we're okay and I'm glad the baby didn't have to witness the mess!

Anyway, this sounded a little strange when I first heard about it, but we had some leftover cottage cheese and I decided to give it a try. It was surprisingly good and very moist! I definitely recommend it!

Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 cups cottage cheese
• 2 T margarine
• 1 egg
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 T sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2.5 T yeast

This can either be made in a bread machine or in the oven at 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients together and bake according to machine guidelines.

Very good and the perfect consistency for bread. I pigged out!

Yummy Peanut Butter Bread

This was one of those recipes that tasted really good, but the photos did not turn out very good. So I warn you that this tastes much better than it looks! It's bread...how can it be bad, right?

Ingredients:
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 teaspoons yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar

Optional: chocolate chips, banana, caramel chips

Add all ingredients to bread pan and bake according to breadmaker directions.

This can also be made in the oven and baked for about 50 minutes or until cooked throughout.

Absolutely fabulous with melted butter, pumpkin butter, or drizzled with caramel sauce!

Sweet Lemon Blueberry Coconut Bread

I've was really into cooking with lemons and coconut, so recipes with these ingredients caught my eye. I took a few different recipes I've seen and combined them together to make this yummy bread.

I also just wanted to apologize that I've been a little MIA lately. I'm about 16 weeks and still pretty sick, tired, and suffering from migraines every day. I'm having a hard time getting through the work day. Looking at the computer screen often makes me dizzy so I haven't been spending as much free time on here. On the days I'm feeling better, I always try to get back to blogging. Today is a miracle and I have some energy, so I'm back!

And back to the yummy bread...

Ingredients:
• 2.5 cups flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 2 t baking powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups shredded coconut
• 1/4 c lemon juice
• 1 T lemon zest
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 t vanilla
• 1/2 c applesauce
• 3/4 c fresh blueberries

Getting hungry? Keep scrolling down for directions : )

1. Heat over to 350 degrees. Grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and coconut.

3. In a small bowl, mix lemon juice, lemon zest, milk, eggs and vanilla.

4. Pour the wet ingredients into the large bowl with the dry ingredients and mix well.

5. Carefully add applesauce and blueberries and stir until smooth.

6. Pour mixture into the loaf pan and bake for 70 minutes or until the center is cooked. Let cool, slice, and enjoy!

Sweet Craisin Banana Bread

First of all, I just wanted to say thanks for all your sweet comments about my pregnancy! You're all so sweet!

Second, I promise not to turn this into a baby AW blog. I have a separate baby blog that was designed just for that purpose. It's private right now because it has so much personal detail during my infertility journey. If anyone would be interested in following it, just let me know and I can send you an invite.

And now, back to the reason you're here!
I came across this recipe and it reminded me about some leftover Craisins I had sitting in the cabinet. This was the perfect way to use up the bag and make a yummy snack!

Adapted from Delectable Dining

Ingredients:
• non-stick cooking spray
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1 large banana
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 6 oz. package of Craisins or dried cranberries

See directions below...
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a bread loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl mix sugar, butter, banana, milk and eggs.

Add dry ingredients, craisins and mix well.

Pour mixture in the loaf pan.

Bake for 75 minutes or until cooked throughout.

So good! Enjoy!

Cinnamon Sugar Bread

This is one of those recipes where the photos don't turn out so well, but it tastes amazing. Bread doesn't look too exciting when you take a photo of it, but this was SO sugary sweet and yummy! It's more like a dessert than a bread, but who cares?!?

Note: I made this in the bread maker, but it can also be made in a loaf pan in the oven.

Ingredients:
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1.5 t cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons yeast

Place ingredients in bread maker pan.

Set machine for quick bread or sweet bread.

When the machine is done mixing and starts to bake, open the top and sprinkle sugar on top of the bread.

Let bake for remaining time.

Dance around impatiently in the kitchen as you smell the bread and wait for it to cool.

See all those cinnamon and sugar pieces? YUM!
The bread was great with a quick spread of butter or a dip in some vanilla frosting.

Pumpkin Cornbread

Nothing says fall like some homemade warm pumpkin cornbread! I made this last week and ate a huge piece every night as dessert!

Adapted from Cara's Cravings

Ingredients:
• non-stick cooking spray
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1/2 unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 9x9 baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.

Pour evenly into baking pan and bake for about 20 minutes or until cooked throughout.

Linking up some Thanksgiving goodness here

My Favorite Fall Recipes

I wanted to share some of my favorite fall goodies from the past year.
They're all so good that it's hard to pick!

Low Fat Pumpkin Fluff

Low Fat Pumpkin Angel Food Cake

Pumpkin Pecan Bread


Apple Maple Glazed Chicken


Amazing Pecan Pie


And by the way, I may just need to go on strike from looking at food blogs until after the holidays. There is SO much yummy stuff out there and you all make me wanna pig out!

See where I'm linking up to here

Super Easy Spinach & Cheese Bread

This bread turned into quite the drama the other night. I noticed we had some extra spinach in the fridge, so I figured I would try it really quickly on a Sunday night. I was super tired, stressed, and just wanted a yummy snack. So I started measuring out my ingredients and when I went to grab the cheese, all I found was an empty container IN THE FRIDGE! Crap, I'm in my pajamas, it's pouring cats & dogs, and I didn't wanna go outside. I called my parents to see if they had any, but they were out too. So I had to resort to running out in the rain just for cheese. I kept thinking how pissed I was going to be if this bread turned out bad. Luckily for me, it was super yummy and I'm glad I finally got my cheese!

So here's my super dramatic bread recipe...and I hope yours is drama-free!

Ingredients:
• 1 c water
• 1 t onion powder
• 1 t butter
• 1/2 c crumbled feta cheese
• 1/2 c parmesan cheese
• 1 t salt
• 1 package instant yeast
• 3 cups flour
• 1 t sugar
• 1 c chopped fresh spinach

Combine all the ingredients in the breadmaker.

Use the fastbake or quick bread setting to get your yummy bread more quickly. Honestly, who wants to wait hours for bread? It smells so good as it bakes and I get very impatient.

I couldn't resist! I had to grab a piece as soon as it came out of the machine. Mmmm...all nice and warm!

Linking up to:

Market Yourself Monday on Sumo's Sweet Stuff
Tasty Tuesday
Tuesdays at the Table