Low-Fat Banana Bread

It’s Monday, so how about a banana bread recipe to kick off your week? What’s even better is that it is low fat, but you would never guess it seeing as there is no sacrifice in flavor. I adapted this recipe from Cooking Light and am extremely  happy with the results.

 

Low-Fat Banana Bread (makes one loaf)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 cup bread flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1 Tablespoon butter, softened
  • 1 Tablespoon non-fat Greek yogurt
  • 1 Tablespoon almond milk*
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
  • 1/3 cup almond milk*
  • 3/4 Tablespoon vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Cooking spray

*almond milk is used two different times in this recipe

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. In medium bowl, combine flours, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, stirring with a whisk.
  3. In a large bowl, cream sugars, butter, yogurt, and 1 Tablespoon of almond milk with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute).
  4. In small bowl, combine 1/3 cup almond milk and vinegar, mix to combine, set aside.
  5. Add eggs to the creamed sugar, 1 at a time. Add banana, and vanilla, continuing to mix.
  6. Alternate adding the milk vinegar mixture and flour mixture; mix at low speed until moist (do not over-mix).
  7. Pour batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch bread loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool, then remove from pan and transfer to cooling rack.

You can eat the bread plain, with your favorite nut butter, apple butter, honey, or anything else that floats your boat. This recipe is my “positive” for my Monday positive talk. I don’t always win when it comes to baking because I really like to experiment with recipes, which leaves a bit of a mystery as to the results of the finish product. This was a win. Another perk to making banana bread besides it tasting wonderful, is that it perfumes the house with such a warm, comforting scent. Have I convinced you to make it yet?

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I am off to tackle the world, aka laundry, errands, cleaning, etc. I ran two miles this morning and plan to run 2-3 this afternoon. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But first, one more cup of coffee.

Have a great day!

Question: Did anyone else bake up any delicious snacks this weekend?

 

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Some TLC for the Big Man

After all of our Sunday errand running yesterday, it was time to give the Mooser a little TLC. We took him out for a nice hilly walk where he sniffed and explored as if he had never seen the outside world before.

That’s 92 plus pounds of lean mean doggy machine.

I worked up an appetite out on our walk and had plans for a killer stir fry for dinner. Before our walk I began marinading Tempeh in soy sauce and garlic powder (I used the other half of the Tempeh a few weeks ago in spaghetti sauce and froze the other half which I used last night).

When we got home I first got the quinoa cooking in the rice cooker: one cup of quinoa to two cups of water. I love how the rice cooker cooks the quinoa. I made a cup because I wanted leftovers.

Next, I began chopping up the veggies. I had leftover asparagus from two days ago that I hadn’t made into asparagus wraps so I chopped that up along with green cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, and red onion.

I poured about a half a tablespoon of garlic olive oil in the wok, heated it up, then added onions. I let the onions cook down for a minute before adding the mushrooms. Next, I added the asparagus and carrots, and then lastly the tempeh and cabbage. I flavored the stir-fry with soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic powder, and a little ginger.

Once the quinoa was done cooking and the cabbage in the stir-fry had started to wilt ever-so-slightly, I plated everything up, gave it one last splash of soy sauce (because I love sauciness) and chowed down. This was my first time putting cabbage into stir-fry and I’d say it was a winner!

I really enjoyed the tempeh in there too. It had a slight nutty taste which was exciting. 😉

After dinner we watched a couple of episodes of Modern Family, Season 1, then headed out to the backyard to entertain the dog for a little while. Dana threw the ball to Moose using the Chuckit! which is one of the best dog toy inventions in my opinion. You don’t have to touch the nasty slimy tennis balls ever. You grab it with the claw of the Chuckit! and “chuck” the ball, and it does all the dirty work for you. How about that.

I made myself an evening snack of PoPcOrN! I spruced it up with some butter spray and salt and it was the perfect salty snack to conclude my Sunday with.

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Now, I am going to get this body moving. Hope everyone is having a tolerable Monday! Oh, I almost forgot. I decided last Monday that every Monday I wanted to write something positive considering I am trying to rekindle my battered relationship with Mondays. So, today I am very happy because I have the day off and my family is coming over for dinner tonight. There.

Let’s hear your positive Monday talk!

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Game Day Recipe Recap

Morning!

MMMm breakfast was a bowl of greek yogurt with honey, banana, and Peanut Butter Multigrain Cheerios. It has to be a good day because I had a good breakfast right? One can only hope!

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Quick recap from yesterday. Later in the afternoon after going through some bins in the basement, we turned on the puppy bowl for Moose. His kind of Super bowl.  He was really into it, see him watching the “game”?! Love this photo so much.

I spent a whole lot of time in the kitchen yesterday whipping up our Super Bowl snacks and Dana did an awesome job keeping up with the mega dishes!

At game time I plated up some goodies for myself: chicken bites, bean dip, guacamole (recipes below), sugar snap peas, Blue Corn with flaxseed tortilla chips, and home-made zucchini and potato chips. I went back for seconds of some more chips and guac.

I didn’t really tune in to the game until the half time show (way to go Madonna!) but then watched most of the last half.

Anyway, here are my Super Bowl recipes. I tried keeping everything healthy. Enjoy!

Baked Chicken Poppers

Baked Chicken Poppers

Ingredients

  • 1 boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
  • 3/4 cup Fiber One Original
  • dash of onion powder
  • 1/3 cup egg white
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400°F; coat baking sheet with cooking spray (I laid aluminum foil down first, then sprayed it for less clean up)

2. Break down Fiber One in food processor until ground; pour cereal onto plate; add a dash of onion powder

3. Pour egg whites into small bowl and line up assembly line (L to R): chicken, egg white, cereal, pan

4. Drop chicken one at a time into egg mixture, then coat in cereal, and place on baking sheet. Repeat until all pieces are coated.

5. Spray chicken with cooking spray; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

6. Bake for 20 minutes.

Serve with warm with honey  mustard, ketchup, barbecue sauce, light ranch, or your favorite dipping sauce. These were really good–I wasn’t sure how they would turn out but they were winners!

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Green Chili Bean Dip

Green Chili Bean Dip

Ingredients

  • 1/2 small white onion, diced
  • 4 oz can diced green chilies
  • 16 oz can reduced sodium pinto beans; rinsed, drained
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1/4 cup salsa
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Saute onion until translucent

2. Add chilies, beans, garlic powder, and cumin; mix to combine

3. Remove from heat; place in food processor

4. Process until smooth; adding salt and pepper to taste

5. Pour into bowl; stir in 1/4 cup salsa

Serve hot or cold with tortilla chips, sugar snap peas, or your favorite veggies

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Guacamole Salsa (with peas)

Guacamole Salsa (with peas)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup peas, food processed to smooth
  • 1 ripe avocado, diced
  • 1 cup corn
  • 1 lime, juiced
  • 1 Roma tomato, diced
  • 1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp cumin
  • 1/4 tsp onion powder
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Mix ingredients until combined. Chill before serving. Serve with tortilla chips. SO GOOD!

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I did baked up some home-made potato chips and zucchini chips for the game as well. We used the mandolin to cut thin slices then baked at 425° for I don’t know how long. We actually had to keep adjusting the temperature of the oven because we couldn’t get the chips to cook evenly. They tasted awesome but because of the experimenting with the temperature and not knowing exactly how long they baked, I won’t be able to give you an exact recipe. Sorry bout that! I’ll get ya next time.

In the midst of all of the super bowl snack prep, I also whipped up a batch of tomato soup for a weeknight dinner this week, as well as some energy balls, and pulled chicken for Dana’s lunches this week (and probably my lunches too). I told you I was a busy lady in the kitchen today!

I will share those recipes later this week. I didn’t want to bombard you with 5,000 recipes right off the bat Monday morning. 🙂

What a wonderful weekend. I am so happy I got to spend so much time with my honey. I felt like we had a very productive weekend. I’ll check in with you all later! Happy Monday.

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Super Bowl Sunday and A Day in the Kitchen

Good morning! Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

Catching you up from last night….

I marinated two tilapia filets. The marinade included 3 Tablespoons lower sodium soy sauce, 1 Tablespoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, and 1/4 teaspoon ground dry ginger.

I let Dana cook them up on the stovetop because I didn’t want to smell fishy since we were meeting up with family soon after. My hair absorbs smells so quickly and I didn’t feel like nauseating myself and everyone else the rest of the night. He was more than happy to help me cook…take a look for yourself! All smiles. 😛

We served the honey soy tilapia with some mukimame (also a soy product!) and some brown rice with soy sauce. It was a soy kind of a dinner I guess. Ha! The tilapia turned out wonderfully. I usually need to put some kind of sauce on my tilapia, but I didn’t with this recipe. It was so easy too! Give it a shot.

It was a light dinner because I knew we would be snacking and having a couple of cocktails later at my aunt and uncle’s. Upon arrival my uncle made me one of his famous margaritas! He used light margarita mix with a splash of orange juice so really he made us “skinny” margaritas. I truly appreciate that since I am trying to watch my waist a little bit these days! I also snacked on some chips and cheese and crackers with a light cream cheese spread. I negated the skinny margarita with the chips and cheese, but I don’t care. I enjoyed every bite of the salty snacks.

We had a great time visiting and catching up with my mom and dad, my aunt and uncle (Chip and Patti), and their kids. It is always so great to see them. I have the best family!

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Sunday Morning

First off, I love Sunday mornings. I especially love Sunday mornings when I know I don’t have much on the agenda for the day. I started my morning off on the right foot by heading down to the treadmill for a quick two-mile run. After that I through a load of laundry in the wash, folded clothes from the dryer, went through a bin of old clothes from the basement, clipped coupons, and eventually came around to making myself some breakfast.

Fresh blueberries, strawberries, and banana topped with a dollop of greek yogurt sweetened with honey. It tasted like dessert it was so creamy and sweet.

Next on the agenda will be finding an at home strength workout on Demand. I am hoping to find a lower body workout including lots of squats. Make it burn baby! I am in a productive mood today.

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Super bowl plans include staying home with the boys and snacking on some real good treats. I am not the type of person who can sit and watch the whole game, so it will be nice to be home so that I can get some stuff done around the house. I’m hoping this will include going through some more bins in the basement. I am not a hoarder but I do have a lot of junk that I do not need. Like Dana says, “just let go.” I need him with me when I’m going through my old clothes so he can help me justify why I DON’T need that swimsuit anymore that would most likely cover only one half of my behind. Kidding, but seriously, I do have a hard time letting go of old clothes.

On the menu for tonight:

  • Guacamole-made with avocado AND peas
  • Healthy bean dip
  • Home made sweet potato chips and possibly zucchini chips depending on how motivated I am
  • Baked chicken poppers
  • Home made caramel corn

We will see if all of these things actually get made. I also want to make up a batch of tomato soup to have for a week night meal this week. It sounds like I will be in the kitchen all day. I LOVE IT! I am feeling ambitious. I feel like someone injected a triple espresso into my bloodstream. I better stay on top of this.

I will be sharing ALL of these recipes with you once I have developed them! I am excited to get creative in the kitchen. Have a wonderful Sunday everyone! Much love to all!

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