Category: Bread

Quest for the Best Banana Bread – Mom Knows Best

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Tonight we continue on our quest for the best banana bread, which is actually nearing an end. In fact after today, we have only one last recipe (and it’s a special one) before the final taste test. I can’t even tell you how excited the kids are about lining up all the pieces of different banana breads for the final taste test. We don’t even know how many there are anymore, but they’re talking about it nearly every day. You would think it was Christmas again with their levels of anticipation.

But before we get to that special recipe and our final taste test, we had to try one more banana bread. It sounded too good to pass up. It comes to us from Dawn (actually Dawn’s mom) at First Look, Then Cook. If you don’t know Dawn, all of her recipes are delectable, but it’s her desserts that WOW me each and every time. She even makes me drool over chocolate (and folks that know me, know that’s saying something). Dawn has several delicious banana related desserts on her blog, but she swears by her mom’s recipe for banana bread, and how can you go wrong with a recipe from mom?!  Continue reading →

Here’s Johnny

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State night is back! This week Miss A is taking us to Utah. Utah has to be one of the most beautiful states Mike and I have ever seen. We spent a few days touring its many national parks on one of our cross-country trips before the kids were born, so we were happy to revisit some of those memories.

Surprisingly though, it was hard to find traditional recipes from the Beehive state. The state fruit is the cherry, but we covered those in Michigan; the state historic vegetable is the sugar beet, and you know how we feel about those (if you don’t here’s a refresher); and the state snack is Jell-O, but well, after Lisa’s post on its mystery ingredients, we can’t bring ourselves to eat it. Then we came across several recipes for the Mormon Johnnycake – done deal. We can do that and it just so happens it was a good match for a Nicaraguan dinner we’ll share later this week. Continue reading →

Quest for the Best Banana Bread and a Chopped Challenge

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We just wrapped up our Christmas parties yesterday, after a celebration with my family. As is tradition, we had a meal of all appetizers. Every family brings their favorite appetizers to share with everyone else and we spend the entire day just grazing. It’s an understatement to say that I’m full today. So before we get to our quest and our challenge, here are a few other blogger recipes we enjoyed once more.

First up is this delicious (and super easy) Baba Ghanoush recipe from Charles at Five Euro Food. I enjoy this one for lunch quite a bit too.

We also made some Candied Cranberries that we saw over at A Spicy Perspective. Miss A and I really enjoyed these – most of the cranberries were sweet, but every now and then one would give a surprisingly tart burst of flavor. A very fun flavor experience, plus they were just pretty. Continue reading →

Taking the Quest for the Best Banana Bread to New Elevations

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The countdown is on folks! Only a few more recipes before we’re opening up the freezer, thawing the banana bread slices and having ourselves a banana bread feast all the while we determine which is our favorite recipe. Perhaps it will be this one? Only time will tell.

This next recipe wasn’t originally going to be in the mix, but we ran across it while surfing around one day, and it was enough different than all the others that we had to give it a try. We found it over at a blog called Inside the Kaganoff Kitchen and it’s called Mountain Sky Banana Bread. So what was so special about this bread that it was calling our name? Cream cheese. Yum! Continue reading →

Going Against the Grain – Quest for the Best Banana Bread (And Giveaway!)

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Up until now we’ve kept our banana breads on this quest pretty traditional, using all-purpose flours, white and brown sugars and even excluded nuts. Today, however, we’re going against the grain by going with the grain! Whole grain that is. Kelly over at Inspired Edibles was gracious enough to put together a recipe on our behalf that is entirely composed of whole grains and raw sugars. In case you didn’t know – Kelly is awesome (and so is her banana bread)!

Now, you can bet Miss A was excited to make this new recipe, especially when I told her that it had oatmeal in it. She loves oatmeal. So she and I gathered our dry ingredients including whole wheat flour, ground flaxseed, whole grain oatmeal, ground allspice, walnuts (just for you Kelly), baking powder, baking soda and turbinado sugar. 

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Quest for the Best Banana Bread Gets Bewitched

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We have recently seen some banana bread recipes floating about with pumpkin added to the mix. Now while that sounds totally interesting and very Halloween-y, we’re keeping our banana breads on this quest simple and pure.

Our eighth banana bread recipe on this quest came to us from Sally at Bewitching Kitchen. Now for those of you that don’t know Sally, she is an amazing cook and a bread baker extraordinaire. So you can bet we were excited to try this recipe.

Miss A was again at the ready for another banana bread baking adventure. She did a great job mashing the bananas and mixing them together with the buttermilk. 

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