so many bananas...

there are a million over ripening bananas in the house and it's near impossible to bake w/o eggs. and patience. and time. (and school, but we sort of pretend that doesn't exist:) the next couple posts are going to be how to use bananas, especially since i found this awesome photo montage of things to do w/ bananas that wasn't just straight up banana cream pie (which is still very much a possibility). everything i'm trying is super easy (as for all the issues mentioned at the beginning. 

the first recipe is about as easy as it gets- frozen banana bites. i got it all prepared before i had to jet for class (although i was almost late getting to school...haha). grab some super ripe bananas and chop them up, about 5-6 per banana. i used 2 bananas.

melt 1/4 c. of chocolate chips (i had semi-sweet) and 1/4 c. creamy peanut butter and melt it in a microwave safe bowl for about 30-45 seconds, mix and dip the bananas in the mix. you can leave them undecorated (as in the back ones) or you can top/roll them in fun stuff- i used chopped pecans. dessicated coconut, any nuts, etc would be excellent options. then pop these bad boys into the freezer (i transferred bananas w/ the parchment paper into a wide short tupperware). and wha-lah! come back at the end of a long hot day and you have some super yummy bananas waiting for you. 


has anyone noticed their bananas having the sticker "yo nana" on it? what happened to my chiquita stickers? 


next for the next banana posting- baked banana fritters (and it's really only b/c i don't want to deal w/ cleaning up all that oil...supreme laziness! hopefully it turns out yummy)

pb lovin

 

surprising our boss for an early birthday celebration tomorrow and i claimed baking a dessert of some sort! usually birthday means cake or cupcakes, but transporting either one of those around campus is not happening- so cookies it is! these are oatmeal peanut butter sandwich cookies from joy the baker. her post makes me laugh and the cookies are phenomenal. soft and chewy with a wonderful nutmeg and pecan flavor and of course the creamy peanut butter filling. you can't go wrong with pb!

joy mentioned she didn't get a picture of the cookies next to a coin to show the size of them, so here you go! i baked my batches for 8 minutes (i love soft cookies)

and don't be stingy with the filling. i went back and refilled these suckers so each cookie got a wonderful creamy inside (post taking the first picture of the sandwich cookies all complete in the green bowl). happy eating! and look forward to some more nommy posts (i'm procrastinating on the studying) this week! it's going to involve these adorable suckers.

cookies for father's day, hit and misses

happy father's day to all the dads out there! i used to think M was where i got my sweet tooth from, but when i started baking cookies and watched D inhale 5 at a time, i realized i didn't stand a chance in those genes. so of course for father's day cookies were on the list of treats for him. there's pretty much only one major rule for baking desserts for my dad- something soft for his mouth so i chose two recipes hoping for the best. i woke up early yesterday to bake a super easy recipe before heading off to the beach w/ some friends (a bit of a guilty conscious in baking these since i was going off somewhere else, but he went golfing on his own anyway...)

 these come from picky palate- her fluffernutter cookies. somehow i only ended up w/ a 7 oz. jar of marshmallow fluff (this stuff is dangerousss) and then was guessing on the amount of peanut butter i had and they flattened out too much, i figured i had too much fluff so i added more peanut butter...

 but then i guess i added too much peanut butter and they became too buttery and crumbly in a sad way...so good thing i had another recipe!

it's getting hot outside so even though i got to bed around 2 am (i confess i didn't get to take a shower after coming back from the beach so i was slightly gross going to bed...) but anyway these are from eagle brand- coconut raisin treasure cookies. i wish condensed milk weren't so cloyingly sweet, but these cookies are still tasty and are nice and soft and you can definitely throw in whatever suits your dad's fancy. i used 1 cup of instant oats and increased the flour to 1 cup instead of using graham cracker crumbs. these are like oatmeal raisin cookies w/ more surprises (which i guess is the whole point of the "treasure" cookies name). i love how many add-ins there are, and the walnuts and raisins and coconut together are oh so delicious! now if only D would get back from golfing so i could stop staring (2nd confession, and sampling) all the cookies.

oh, and if anyone is in the md/de/va area and is heading to the eastern shore this summer sunshine crepes in bethany beach makes some delicious sweet crepes:)

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

christmas music has been playing in my car non-stop probably since thanksgiving and there was actual snowfall so christmas is definitely less than a week away! not that any present buying has occurred but that's a work in progress. my sweet shop blog is coming along and i finished my first order (check it out).

walking through old ellicott city the windows for the shops are decked out in full holiday happiness!

 it's amazing how the pink and purple ended up looking so festive!

i almost thought about trying to hanging ornaments with ribbon against the white wall that runs along our stairs but wasn't sure if it would hang right...

and of course, holidays = holiday baking!

Double chocolate coconut peanut butter cookies (now that's a delicious mouthful!)
1 box chocolate cake mix
1 can condensed milk
about 1/2 cup coconut*
about 1 cup peanut butter (we used smooth, but crunchy works too)
about 1 1/2 - 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients and then roll into however large cookies you would like and bake for 10-15 minutes (depending on the size) until the bottoms are browning (which is a bit more difficult with cookies that are already brown, but they do have a different color!). these cookies sink and harden a bit once they cool so don't worry too much if they are very soft when they first come out of the oven, just make sure the bottoms are brown.

the coconuts give it a nice crunch, i'm sure lots of different add-ins would be great. some holiday colored chips would also probably be adorable. these are about the easiest and tastiest cookies ever

lunch 4

Yum yum. main: spinach salad, havarti, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots and the leftover chicken from yesterday
snacks: hummus and pita, graham crackers, pb & chocolate chips, and an apple

day 3

yum yum. butternut squash stuffing (find it here) with chicken on top. then graham crackers with peanut butter and sprinkled chocolate chips (so cute) and cherry tomatoes