Cherry, chocolate, walnut whole wheat bread

phew, just writing that title made me tired. this was not originally what i planned to make at 7am but the grocery store was conspiring against me. because the bananas are merrily greenish yellow but i still wanted to bake i figured i would make some pumpkin chocolate chip bread, BUT, after haunting the grocery store for 30 minutes and not finding it i decided it just wasn't meant to be.

so instead i bought a bag of frozen dark cherries (i had wanted cranberries, but i couldn't find fresh or frozen!) and this is what i ended up creating...

i was stealing bits of cherry as i cut them in half. yum! the recipe was definitely a fiddle as i go kind of thing. the bread is a little too sweet and doesn't hold together very well, but who am i to turn down chocolate and walnuts. not so sure about the cherries, but i will continue eating them to find out!
the other problem may have come from my strange obsession to base this recipe off of the banana bread in the Everything Cookbook...

Cherry, Chocolate chip, walnut whole wheat bread (say that 3 times fast!)

1 2/3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup instant oats

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

about 1 cup apple sauce

½ cup water

2 eggs

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 ½ cup halved frozen dark cherries, tossed in whole wheat flour (not sure if necessary)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease two loaf pans and flour the bottom of the pans (or you can make 1 larger loaf, they come out pretty shallow). Mix flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a separate bowl add the apple sauce and water. Mix eggs in one at a time. Add the chocolate chips and walnuts. Slowly mix in the flour mixture. After mixing add the cherries. Scoop into bread loaves and bake about 25 minutes.

the chocolate chips were a bit overpowering so i would cut that back a bit. i can't taste the oats, but the whole wheat flour definitely gives the bread a very hearty and dense flavor. i wonder what it would taste like with white flour?

ripening bananas and baking woes

it's a winter wonderland and apparently it's going to get even snowier this weekend!

i've wanted to bake and that hasn't been easy with this kitchen mess. i finally thought i would be able to bake since the contractors weren't coming around so i bought super cheap bananas from bj's to make some banana walnut bread. the only problem- when i bought them they were green- like green green. green eggs and ham kind of green. and for some reason there are absolutely no brown paper bags in my house to ripen them faster. now, i could've gone out to get some brown paper bags but that would be too simple. instead i have my bananas housed in a large quaker oatmeal box next to a heat vent to somehow create a nice and warm environment so the fruit can decompose or whatever so i can bake!

24 hours after placing them inside of the box

48 hours later

i don't know about you but my banana still looks pretty sad...here's to hoping i get to make banana walnut bread in the near future.

Drum roll please

The end of the first month of the new year is already coming to an end. It's amazing how quickly time is going by. I'm trying some new things out with the layout and bare with me as things get changed up.

As for the drum roll, the kitchen is "finished"! It definitely has that new kitchen feel, but does not really have a personality, it's very much a kitchen for any average kitchen remodeling company. I suppose that's what I get for looking through beautiful kitchen renovation books...I've learned my lesson.

But of course the best news is that I get to now cook (once all the cooking and baking supplies make their way back into their new cabinetry homes). Thus far I made some yellow cupcakes from a box (it was snowing, I got out of work early and could not muster up the courage to drive to the grocery store). I figure everyone knows what regular ol yellow cupcakes look like so I didn't bother to take a picture. Today I also got out of work early (I'm not doing it on purpose!) and my first stop before going home (okay, maybe my second, I went to the library first...) was to safeway where I bought the ingredients for the worlds easiest chili. At least I think so. Onion, green pepper, packet of mccormack (sp?) hot chili mix, can of black beans, can of dark red kidney beans, can of whole peeled tomatoes, and veggie crumbles (there's an entry somewhere on this blog about my chili). I know, not the most challenging of foods to jump back into the world of cooking but it's like getting back in shape- taking it slowly. But trust me, I plan on oodles more of cooking (or actually baking).

But first things first, getting a block of havarti for all this lettuce I bought:)

the kitchenless diet

we are now into week 3 of the kitchen renovations aka the pb&j and anything else carb diet. it's amazing what cannot be accomplished without a kitchen. this so called kitchenless diet has resulted in a long list of places and foods i would like to eat on a neverending budget:
- tutti frutti
- lasagna
- i want to try making muir glen's smoky mac 'n cheese recipe
- veg chili
- dessert of some sort
- a vegetable in general

maybe i'll grab some fro-yo on my way home tomorrow. in exercise news- walked along the trolley path that goes from old ec into catonsville. it's a very nice walk although it's strange with the nice looking houses along the path. it would seem a little frightening to live out there at night.

there's going to be a hope for haiti now special on tv on friday night at 8pm. seeing all the stuff in the news it would be nice to go down there and help rebuild and do what needs to be done. anyone been down there since the earthquake?

so this is 2010...

having an interesting start to the new year. been sick, got pink eye and have eaten more pb&j sandwiches in the last 2 weeks than in the past month. but the good news- only the boogies are still with me, my eyes are no longer crusting and the marble countertops for my parents' kitchen just came in. (although i'm not sure about the color still, it does mean i am one step closer to being able to eat REAL cooked food)

as for new years resolutions, hm. probably the same for the past couple years. be a better person and get in shape. how's that for creativity.

but to be real- these are my new things to get me to tone up the fun stuff while i'm in a place that i everyone finds themselves in at one point or another during the day...the bathroom. so, push-ups against the counter and tricep dips along the bathtub (perfect height!) i end up doing most of that while i wait for the shower water to heat up. so there! something simple and not time consuming. i'll tell you how that works out. anyone else have suggestions?

christmas

Hope everyone had a great Christmas/holidays! instead of putting up our usual christmas tree, paper crafts is the theme. found everything to decorate our construction paper trees lying around the house. now how is that for recession holiday fun!

the fam's all home and since it's a big holiday that means food! so we started off in the early morning making some monkey bread- not too bad, the brown sugar made the biscuits stick to the bundt pan. decreased the sugar and butter to make the "healthier" version. the brown sugar could be decreased even more. plus, some walnuts or something would add a nice touch.

then of course the main part of the christmas meal-simple baked tilapia (salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon, threw in a garlic clove while it baked) then a side of roasted parsley potatoes and butter roasted asparagus and brussel sprouts. first time trying brussel sprouts, not bad drowning in a garlicky butter sauce, however, if u can tell, we sort of forgot to check the vegetables and our green veggies sort of died...
of course there always needs to be dessert...it's a oreo cheesecake cupcake. it has an oreo at the bottom, then regular cheesecake with oreo crumble on top. the cookie doesn't really soften in the oven, so next time only putting in half the cookie might work out just as well

Belated Thanksgiving

Now that it's less than 2 weeks until Christmas, I've decided it's high time to talk about the past holiday (ahem, my favorite holiday) Thanksgiving. The usual was made and devoured, although the one that was different and I wanted to talk about my sweet potato pie-Korean style.I got the recipe off of the foodnetwork site and it was really simple. But then, being frazzled shopping at Lotte and cornered by my mother to use the Korean sweet potato (not the American yam/sweet potato, which I've realized no one labels as both!). So instead of an orangey kind of pie, it was more yellow. It looked down right frightening before it was baked, but the resulting flavor tasted like a dense Korean sweet potato with a crust. Yum. Happy eating.