Chai Banana Bread

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I’m a chai fan.  Oh yeah.  Especially this time of year.  I know everyone gets all hyped up on pumpkin lattes and what not (yes, I agree, they are delicious), but for some reason, I always associate chai with fall.  (Technically, it still feels like summer, but you catch my drift.)

But it has been nice here in MKE the past week or so.  I’ve been sleeping with the windows open-it’s been cooling off a lot at night and I have noticed that the days are getting a bit shorter.  So bring on all things related to chai.

Like, this pretty snazzy banana bread.  I love a good banana bread, too, so if you combine these great flavors, you end up with a pretty tasty treat.  I did attempt to make this recipe a bit healthier by cutting out half of the butter and using whole wheat pastry flour.  If you would like, you can omit the glaze here-I personally thought it added a bit of extra spice to the bread, but if you are watching your calories, this is an easy way to cut a few.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make a cup of chai tea and go read a good book.

 

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Chai Banana Bread

Servings: 1 loaf

 

Ingredients

For the bread:

1 and 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3)

1/3 cup plain fat-free Greek yogurt

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

3 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce

2 large eggs

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 and 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1 and 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided

Cooking spray

For the glaze:

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 and 1/2 teaspoons milk or milk substitute

 

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Instructions

1. For the bread: Preheat your oven to 350°.

2. In the bowl of your standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a medium bowl with a hand mixer), combine the banana, Greek yogurt, butter, applesauce, and eggs, mixing until combined.

3. Add both of the sugars and continue to beat until blended.

4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

5.  Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture; beat just until blended.

6. In a small bowl, mix together the cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice.

7. Place 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of the spice mixture into the batter, and add 1 teaspoon vanilla.

8. Pour into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray.

9. Bake the bread for 65 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Let cool completely.

10.For the glaze: Combine the remaining spice mixture, remaining vanilla, powdered sugar, and milk. Drizzle over the cooled bread.

 

Source:  Adapted from Cooking Light as part of my monthly contribution to the Cooking Light Bloggers’ Connection.

September 6, 2013 - 8:22 am

Katrina @ Warm Vanilla Sugar - I am all the way with you friend. Chai + fall just make sense to me. And this bread? Amaaaazing!

September 6, 2013 - 10:59 am

KerryCan - This looks terrific–what a great idea for a flavor combination!

September 6, 2013 - 11:09 am

Anne ~ Uni Homemaker - Sounds delicious! I love the idea of adding some chai spice to banana bread. Great recipe & pinning!

September 6, 2013 - 11:49 am

Christina - I love the flavors here. Such a new take on banana bread!

September 6, 2013 - 12:59 pm

Lisa @ Lisa Living Well - I love chai too and associate it with fall as well. This recipe sounds really great!

September 7, 2013 - 10:17 am

Joanne - I was recently gifted some chai peanut butter cookies and have been obsessed with the chai spices ever since! Banana bread does kinda seem like the perfect vessel for them.

September 7, 2013 - 11:07 am

jennie @sundayswithjennie - What a fun take on classic banana bread! Looks great!

September 26, 2013 - 9:26 am

Food to Fitness - Looks perfect. Great pics. Keep it up.

May 29, 2014 - 8:32 pm

Warm Vanilla Sugar | May Things - […] Holy heck brownies by Cookies and Cups Tomato cobbler with gruyere biscuits by Annie’s Eats Chai banana bread by The Curvy Carrot Sweet potato and black bean Mexican salad by Two Peas and Their […]

May 30, 2014 - 6:48 am

Jules @ WolfItDown - This looks divine! I love a good banana loaf, and the spices in this would certainly be like a hug in the face at any season, time or day 😀 Thanks for sharing! x

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Mini Muffins

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These are vegan.  Yes, vegan.

 

Doesn’t look like it, does it?

I know a lot of people out there have an aversion to anything with the label of “vegan”on it.  Meaning, it can’t taste good.  It must taste like cardboard.  Nothing can taste good if it doesn’t have butter or cream or eggs in it (fair argument for some dishes, I personally have to admit).

But these, my friends, these seriously taste really good.

And there’s a secret ingredient in there, too.  Yes, chickpeas.

Before you run away screaming, please know that I actually tried this recipe with a little pessimistic devil on my shoulder.  I really didn’t think that anything with ground chickpeas in it would even taste remotely good, especially if it was included in a recipe entitled “chocolate chip cookie dough.”  But, please please bear with me here. You can’t even tell that there are chickpeas in here, I promise.  And it’s another affirmation to me about what a fantastic magazine VegNews is as a resource for those interested in/attempting to become/maintaining a vegan lifestyle.

So, my little pessimistic kitchen experiment ended with a totally optimistic hope that my future vegan adventures would taste just as good as these guys.

These little muffins (or cakes, really) are soft, moist, and sweet.  There’s no butter here.  There are vegan chocolate chips, which make pretty much anything better.

I’m not a total convert yet, but I could be if I could always eat little things like these.

 

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Mini Muffins

 

Servings: about 12 muffins (depending on the size of muffin tin you used-I used a mini bundt cake pan, so my yield was about 12, but if you use a standard mini muffin pan, you should get about 24 muffins)

 

Ingredients

1/2 cup quick-cooking oats

1 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce

1-1/2 tablespoons safflower oil (or vegetable oil)

1/2 tablespoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

 

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Spray a mini bundt cake pan or mini muffin pan with cooking spray.

3. In a food processor, combine the oats, chickpeas, applesauce, safflower oil, vanilla, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and brown sugar and process the mixture until it is completely smooth.

4. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl, and gently fold in the chocolate chips.

5.Divide the mixture evenly in your prepared mini bundt cake pan.

6. Bake the muffins for 13 to 15 minutes or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

 

Source:  Barely adapted from VegNews.

 

September 4, 2013 - 9:25 am

Stephanie @ Girl Versus Dough - Chickpeas?? OK, usually I might run away screaming, but these have chocolate chips in them and I’m never one to turn down anything with chocolate chips. Especially in mini muffin form. I’m intrigued!

September 4, 2013 - 9:45 am

Christina - I haven’t tried many vegan treats and I’ll try anything that with the words “cookie dough” in the title.

September 4, 2013 - 4:31 pm

Hannah @ CleanEatingVeggieGirl - I love any excuse to eat chocolate in the morning! 😉

September 4, 2013 - 8:55 pm

Joanne - I’ve made quite a few vegan treats and they always surprise me with how moist and delicious they are! The chickpeas…I’d be wary of. But if you say they’re good then they’re worth a try!

September 5, 2013 - 9:29 pm

Katrina @ Warm Vanilla Sugar - As if these are vegan! They look sooooo tasty!!

September 26, 2013 - 8:00 am

Double Chocolate and Kahlúa Mini Bundt Cakes - […] all that often. But it just so happens we’ve now used it two times in one week. I also made these one weeknight for a co-workers birthday. Of course if you don’t have a mini bundt pan you can […]

Fettucine with Seared Tomatoes and Why I am Single

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There’s some  quote (or possibly many quotes) out there that talk a lot about challenges being placed in your life for a reason-basically until you learn what you are supposed to learn, and then they will go away.  These challenges can basically be disguised in a million different ways, but, nevertheless, they are all a part of a bigger lesson that you must overcome.

Another favorite quote of mine (by the great Albert Einstein) is this: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If you haven’t figured it out, I’m a huge quote person.

There was a person a few years ago who made a tremendous impact on my life.  She helped me build back up a lot of broken stuff, fill in a couple deep, deep wounds, and showed me a completely different way of looking at life in general.  To this woman, I pretty much owe everything.  But, out of the hundreds of lessons she taught me (I would like to refer to her as my unofficial guru), one of them in particular always stands out.

And that is, the “pop quiz”. It’s the universe’s little way of checking in to see if you have learned that particular lesson you needed to learn.

Here’s one of my examples.

I met this guy, Jon, a few years back.  We hit it off right away and went on a few dates.  Needless to say, a couple of dates in, I learned that that not only was he still planning on going “on vacation” with his ex-girlfriend a few months from then, but that they were still communicating frequently, even though they had been “broken up” for several months.

Yeah.

This, of course, didn’t fly with me.  And it didn’t fly with me that I found all this out from a mutual friend (Jon didn’t even tell me).  So, when confronted, he spilled his guts to me (and by spilling his guts, I mean he shared some pretty personal, private medical issues with me that left me standing there like he had just cut his arm off and handed it to me.)  I had enough emotional baggage at the time that taking on his was way too much.

A few months went by.  He went with his ex to Tunisia, as planned.  She left early, apparently.  He stayed an extra week.  And then he calls me to go out for a drink.

At this point I have successfully failed the first pop quiz.

We go out again, have a great time, and start communicating on a regular basis.  One day he sends me a text (he was working nights at the time) with a picture of himself.  I texted back….not knowing that he had inadverdantly sent it to multiple people and I was actually texting all of them back.

You know how this goes, right?  (again, another failure on the pop quiz)

“Stacy” texts me right away, asking who I am and how I know Jon.  I tell her.  She tells me how she knows Jon. We text back and forth, spilling the details.  “Stacy”  (honestly, I don’t even remember her name) calls Jon, Jon calls me, I hang up on Jon.  Jon sends me a series of about 8 pages of text messages talking about all of his issues.  I tell him what I think  and call it a day.

I thought that was the end of the story.

Fast forward about four months.  I have now moved over 1000 miles away and I am dating someone new.  One night, completely out of the blue, I get another 8-page text from Jon, apologizing for everything, and then telling me that I am basically the one who got away, that he’s going to interview for a job in the place where I currently work (again, 1000 miles away from where we met), and that when he comes for an interview he wants to see me.  I don’t respond.  He then emails me the next day, reiterating everything.  I don’t respond.  And, thankfully, I haven’t heard from him in almost two years now.

I consider that as an example of  finally ace-ing a great pop quiz.  At least with that particular man.

And don’t worry, I have quite a few of these stories to share with you.

I get asked a lot about why I am single, and this both amuses me and annoys me at the same time.  I get asked this by almost exclusively coupled people, like there’s something wrong with it or weird about it (p.s. there’s not.).  I am single because I choose to be.  All of these men (?) have shown me what I don’t want, and I’m really thankful for that.

I’ll tell you what I do want, though.  I want a best friend, a companion, someone who will travel the world with me, and someone who will let me have my own space and, most importantly,someone who will love me back just as much as I love them (which is a lot).  If he could have his own space, do his own thing, and maybe we could see each other once or twice a week, that would be pretty much perfect.  I want to experience life moving in a forward direction running parallel with someone, not in a twisted circle enmeshed in a solid line with someone else (the twisted part comes from examples like Jon).  And, I’m saying that I’m not even sure if I want this right now.  But in the future?  Yes.

I’ll close this intro (possibly the longest intro ever) by saying that another one of my favorite quotes (which apparently has been mistakenly attributed to Buddha, so I don’t know where it comes from), is along the lines of:  “In the end, there are three things that matter:  how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”  Personally, I think it’s absolutely beautiful.  I refuse to mess around with the free will of someone else.  And I don’t want anyone messing around with mine.  If the timing isn’t right, and if the stars aren’t in “perfect alignment”, then it’s not right. And when it is time, and it is right…it will happen.  And maybe this is a gradual realization on my part…a giant pop quiz, in a way.

 

And now on to the reason you came here in the first place…the food.

This dish is pretty tasty, I have to say.  And now that we are in the season of tomatoes, this is great way to use up your tomato surplus.  There’s something incredible about a seared tomato.  The warm juice, the slightly charred flavor of the tomato skin, the way it kind of pops in your mouth…it’s all good.  And, anything with burrata on it is fantastic (I can eat a whole ball in one sitting.) I substituted kale here (the original recipe calls for spinach), so use whatever you have on hand (note: the kale will take longer to cook down).  I also threw in some capers (I love them) for a little bit of extra salty flavor.  Some kalamata olives would have been pretty good, too, but I didn’t have any on hand.  Enjoy.

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Fettucine with Seared Tomatoes, Kale, and Burrata

Servings: about 4

 

Ingredients

8 ounces uncooked whole wheat fettuccine

Cooking spray

1 cup grape tomatoes, halved (about 15 or so)

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1 tablespoon crushed garlic (or minced-however you like it)

One 14.5-ounce can unsalted diced tomatoes, undrained**Get fire-roasted if you can-it’s awesome

2 tablespoons capers

1 bunch fresh kale, chopped (about 3 cups)*Make sure to discard the stems in the middle-just use the leaves, ok?

4 ounces burrata cheese

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

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Instructions

1. For the pasta: Cook the pasta according to package directions and drain.  Meanwhile, make the sauce.

2. For the sauce:  Generously spray a sauté pan with cooking spray and heat over medium-high heat.

3. Arrange the tomato halves, cut sides down, in the sauté pan and until seared. (It took me about 3-4 minutes or so).

4. Stir the tomatoes and cook for about 30 seconds. Remove the tomatoes from the pan and set aside.

5. Reduce the heat to low, and add the olive oil to the pan.

6. Add the red pepper and garlic and cook for about 1 minute or so, stirring occasionally.

7. Add the canned tomatoes and capers and for cook for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

8. Add the kale and cook for about 3-4 minutes, stirring frequently, until the kale wilts slightly (or cook until it is of your desired consistency.  I wanted mine to have a little texture still.)

9. Add the cooked pasta and stir to combine, cooking for another minute or so.

10. Divide the pasta between your serving bowls, and place your desired amount of seared tomatoes on top of each.

11. Top each serving with your desired amount of burrata cheese (the more the better, in my honest opinion).  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

 

 

Source:  Adapted from Cooking Light as part of my monthly contribution to the Cooking Light Bloggers’ Connection.

August 29, 2013 - 7:29 am

Katrina @ Warm Vanilla Sugar - You’re dating stories always blow my mind. Some guys are just cray cray…and being single is freaking important until you actually find a dude that’s worth spending forever with. I totally agree with you – you need someone who’s everything you need, and not just part of it. But for now you have friends, this little space, and all the crazy people on the internet you can find for support. Love this dish too! xo

August 29, 2013 - 2:40 pm

Amy @ Elephant Eats - Wow, that’s a crazy story! It sucks when you know you’re such a good catch and just can’t find a guy who’s worth it, who you could love and who could love you back the same way. I went on SO many dates before ultimately meeting my now husband. Like seriously, I did online dating and met over 200 guys! There sure are a lot of losers out there 🙁 Good luck finding your perfect man- he’s definitely out there!
And speaking of perfect, this pasta has just about every one of my favorite pasta ingredients all tied into one delicious package 🙂

August 29, 2013 - 9:19 pm

Joanne - You are such an AMAZING person and I love that you’re holding out for the person who’s right for you and not falling into the trap of just needing someone and taking anyone. I think too many girls are quick to do that because of the pressure to find a husband. It’s so crazy that such a thing still exists.

I pretty much wrote an ode to burrata on my blog today! Need this pasta.

August 29, 2013 - 9:21 pm

srlacy - Thanks, Joanne! I think you are pretty amazing, too! 🙂

September 3, 2013 - 8:08 pm

Laryssa - I just found your blog through a link on Pinterest and loved reading your intro for this post. Thanks for sharing. And I know what you mean about wanting to find someone who is living his own life so that you two can live parallel lives. I want that too. I recently broke up with my boyfriend of two years and really can’t wait to embrace singledom for as long as I need to do it. 🙂

September 3, 2013 - 9:00 pm

srlacy - Yes! Nice to meet you, Laryssa!

September 9, 2013 - 5:01 am

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Smoothies » The Curvy Carrot - […] of my last posts seemed to really resonate with some of you.  Which makes me incredibly happy and grateful and […]

September 10, 2013 - 10:45 am

Shobelyn - “Pop quizzes ” happened to me all the the time and until it got so hard, I do not get it. I worried, I stumbled and I got so hurt and injured that I had to let go and let my faith drove me to survival. And I did. And I am here. I am learning so much and I think life is wonderful and a challenge. I just have to do the right thing. I realized now that I just have to learn to let go and not worry too much.

September 17, 2013 - 10:06 am

Lichi - lol did i wrote the intro above? because it sure does sound familiar! i think every girl have been there – time after time going out with the same man/type and not understanding what is wrong with ME! it took me years to understand the only thing that is wrong with me is that i keep thinking that something is wrong with me! Instead of accepting the simple truth – that what you don’t accept from a friend you will not accept from a man – so you are allowed not to accept certain behaviors even if he is really cute.
I met my other half when i stopped looking for the “perfect guy for me” and started to look for someone who i feel comfortable with – 100%. and i am so happy i did 🙂 your blog is beautiful 🙂

September 17, 2013 - 12:08 pm

srlacy - Thanks Lichi! I am very happy for you!