Shredder!

Not the "heroes in a half shell.... turtle power" Shredder.  Brings back memories though.  Anyone ever watch the movies?

No, I spent a couple minutes with an old friend tonight.

Jillian and I worked out Level 2 of the 30 day Shred tonight.  Our Vegas trip is coming up way too soon, so it's time to kick it in gear.  Plus I need to get back to aerobics shape if I'm going to start teaching again.  Hopefully I can walk tomorrow.

This morning I needed to use up some ripe bananas or freeze them, so I chose to use them since I already have a couple packages of ripe bananas in the freezer.  I made some yummy banana bread, recipe courtesy of my auntie Teresa.  Not the healthiest, but tastes sooo good.  Has a little surprise layer of cinnamon and sugar.

Banana Bread

Makes 1 loaf

3 large ripe bananas                                             1/4 tsp salt
1 c sugar                                                             1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs                                                                  1/2 tsp baking powder
3 T milk                                                               1/2 c butter
2 c flour                                                                1 tsp vanilla
1 T sugar                                                               1 T cinnamon


Beat bananas, sugar and eggs.  Stir in milk.  Mix flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in separate bowl then add to the banana mixture.  Stir in melted better and vanilla.  Mix 1 T sugar and 1 T cinnamon.  Spread half the batter in a greased loaf pan, and sprinkle half of the cinnamon and sugar mixture on top.  Add the other half of the batter and sprinkle the remainder of the cinnamon and sugar on top.

Bake at 275 degrees for 1 1/2 hours (although mine are always done at 1 hr 15 min, so check with a toothpick often)            

Thanks Teresa for the recipe.  I ended up giving this to some friends though, since I need to watch my sugar.

It was really hard not to break into the loaf but I didn't.  Instead I had a bowl of vanilla Chobani with blueberries, chia seeds, and coconut.  No picture.

I wasn't sure what to have for lunch, so I just went searching for leftovers in the fridge.  When we went out to eat at Champs on Saturday, my mom had a french dip sandwich and brought half home.  She left it here, so I decided to use up the meat.

My inspiration for the meal was those little appetizers that you make with dried beef, cream cheese and pickles.  I loooooove those things.

So I used one of my new artisan tortillas, spread a dab of lowfat cream cheese on it, put the warmed up roast beef and threw some dill pickles on top.  It was awesome.

I took this picture so you can judge the size, I have two sizes of plates, and when you take a closeup it's hard to see how big it actually is, so here's the little next to the big.  Love Fiestaware!

Supper was prepared by hubby, some chicky chicky parm parm.  Homemade chicken parmesan!  He pan-fried some smart chicken dipped in Italian bread crumbs, warmed up some sauce, made whole wheat noodles.  I threw all that in a bowl plus a big handful of spinach to get some greens since I didn't have any for lunch.  Topped it off with some Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper and of course Parmesan cheese!

That's all for today, have a feeling tomorrow is going to be cah- razy!

                                 

Rum for breakfast?

Thank you hubby, for letting me sleep in today!  I was so energized I decided to finally use those brown bananas.  So I made coconut banana bread with a lime glaze.  And yes the recipe calls for rum, so I broke out the Captain.  While I was making it, I had a piece of toast (with Ezekial bread) and some crunchy peanut butter and a drizzle of honey.

I found this recipe on a blog I read, Our Best Bites.  It was taken from a recipe that was originally found in Cooking Light.  The original didn't have the glaze, and it had rum instead of apple juice or milk.  I thought it'd be fun to use rum.  Here's the recipe:

Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze

2 C flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 C sugar
1/4 C (4 Tbs) real butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 C mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large bananas)
1/4 C sour cream or plain yogurt (I used plain Chobani)
3 Tbs dark rum
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 C coconut

Topping: 2 Tbs additional coconut
Glaze: 1/2 C powdered sugar whisked with 1 1/2 Tbs fresh lime juice (I used concentrate)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until blended. Add eggs and beat to combine. Add banana, sour cream or yogurt, rum, and vanilla. Beat until blended.
Add flour mixture and beat at a low speed until just combined. Stir in 1/2 C coconut.

Pour batter into a 9×5″ loaf pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Sprinkle additional 2 Tbs coconut on top.

Bake in the oven for about 1 hour or until a knife or skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Note:Check bread after about 40 minutes. If the top has browned and the coconut pieces are looking toasty, cover top of bread lightly with a piece of foil. Continue baking until done.

When done, remove pan from oven. Let cool on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes and then carefully remove from pan. Whisk powdered sugar and lime juice together for the glaze and then drizzle over top. Cool for another 15 minutes before slicing.




Here's a before pic:

The batter tasted pretty good, and I didn't get a buzz in case you were wondering

And here's an after pic:

Forgot the whole part about checking at 40 minutes and covering with foil

And here's a close-up of the awesomeness:

This is a little different than my normal "healthy" banana bread that uses whole wheat flour and flax seed meal. I'll post that one someday.  This recipe is definitely chock full of sugar.  Think each slice is maybe around 200 calories.  It's pretty worth it though.  One tip: when measuring out the sugar, I almost always use just a little less than what the recipe calls for.  Chances are, you don't really need all of that sugar.  It's not one of the chemical necessities in a recipe like baking soda or eggs or oil.  Try it and see what you think.


Moving on, I did not get a picture of lunch because I ate it so fast.  Just another spinach salad with chicken, toasted walnuts and blueberries.  And my fav dressing.

Checked a bunch of stuff of the to-do list today, which felt good.  Supper was a grilled chicken breast (marinated in Italian dressing I think- hubby prepared din din) and some pasta.  Chicken was soooo good, since we stocked up on smart chicken when we were at the big city grocery store.

Definitely lacking some greenage... need to stock up on broccoli!

Had our second to last softball game tonight and sweated buckets. We won. We're doing much better than we thought we would!  We did stick around for one beer since we had a babysitter tonight.

That's all for tonight... get pumped, tomorrow's Friday!!