Pumpkin Bread

As a kid I would look forward to dessert. When dinner was finally over, out would come the brownies and to my horror nuts would be laced throughout the chocolaty goodness. I vowed that no matter what I would never, ever put nuts in desserts. Because that is what old people do. And even now I don't want to admit that I have crossed that barrier that separates the young from the old. So no nuts will ever grace my sweet breads or my desserts.

This bread was calling to me for two weeks before I got around to making it. When it finally would not be ignored any longer, the ingredients came together into a dense, moist loaf of pumpkin goodness.

I brought one loaf to a friend with a new baby and when he picked up the bag his eyebrows shot up and he said, "Whoa! This is heavy!" Yep, it is.

Pumpkin Bread

5 small or 4 larger bananas, mashed

1-28 oz can or 2 15-oz cans pumpkin

3/4 c brown sugar (or leave it out if you want)

1/2c honey

1/2 c oil

4 eggs

5 c whole wheat pastry flour (or whatever flour)

2 t baking powder

2 t baking soda

1 t salt if

4 t pumpkin pie spice

2 t cinnamon

up to 3 C any other extras such as flax seeds, wheat germ, bran flakes, or cranberries.

Mix everything in a large bowl, stir to combine everything, then fill 2 greased, waxed paper lined loaf pans. Bake at 325 for 1 hour.

Banana Bread

We had a miserable time making banana bread when were first married. We tried fancy recipes but it is hard to get excited about a recipe with 37 ingredients, so finally Kevin broke down and called his mom. She gave him a very simple recipe: tons of butter, two tons of sugar, 4 tons of flour, 2 eggs, and 3 bananas. Now I know why Monica was always so adamant about NOT buttering banana bread.

A month ago I saw a recipe on one of my favorite blogs: A Greener Tea. (Click on the name to go to the site.) You have to check out the recipe on her blog just to see the note her darling kids left for her. What sweet angels. This whole blog is about embracing your age. It is for women 35 and older, but I figure, what the heck, I can't wait until I'm 40 so I qualify in spirit if not yet in age.

This recipe has a bunch of strange ingredients: flax seed, wheat germ, and wheat bran. Hali says that we can't digest flax seed, so don't bother putting it in stuff. Too bad, Hali. Sadly, I only had to improvise on one ingredient. I had no wheat bran, but, on an even more sad note, I did have bran flakes, so I ground those up and used them instead.

It is a sign of a defeated woman to have bran flakes in her food storage. Especially when it is in the section that actually gets used.

Kevin saw some flax in the bottom of the bread loaf pan, and asked if flax was in the banana bread. That is a deal breaker for him. I told him there was some ground flax but the muffins didn't have any whole pieces on the bottom, and you couldn't even taste them. It wasn't good enough - now he won't even try them. Good! Now there's more for me. I'll let you tomorrow if there is too much fiber.....

Isn't this weird? The muffin on the left was the first batch, and I mixed the dry ingredients, then the wet, then folded them together. The one on the right came together by throwing everything into a bowl and mixing it up. The one on the right has noticeably less texture. And I didn't use a blur effect in PhotoShop. I did use some of The Pioneer Woman's PhotoShop actions, but only "Boost" to brighten the image a bit. Both mixing methods taste the same.

** Special Note ** If you are new to the Pioneer Woman, do not look at her Chicken, Bacon and Cheese Sandwich while at work, or you will be accused of looking at food porn. This is especially true if you are salivating over her food right before lunch.

Banana Bread with goofy ingredients
3 bananas, mashed
½ C yogurt
1 t baking soda
1 egg
1 t vanilla
2 T oil
1/2 C dark brown sugar
1 ½ C whole wheat flour
1 t baking powder
¼ C ground flax seed
¼ C wheat germ
¼ C wheat bran

Mix everything together and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until golden brown.

Kamikaze Pancakes

Early in our relationship, Kevin introduced me to The Egg and I, a restaurant in Uptown. I opened the menu and fell madly in love and may never recover. There in black and white were the words I had always fantasized about reading: "Kamikaze Pancakes." They are made with buckwheat flour and bananas, blueberries, and walnuts are baked in. Then they are topped with more bananas, blueberries, and walnuts.

One pancake is the size of the plate and leaves you stuffed. Never being much for moderation, I always get two. Come on now - we only go there once or twice a year, and all things should be taken in moderation, including moderation itself.

Since we sometimes need a kamikaze fix in between visits, I modified an oatmeal pancake recipe to include buckwheat. If you use the 1/4 C spoon to make them they will fit nicely in the toaster the next day.

If you don't have any buckwheat or buckwheat flour, go ahead and use rolled oats instead. If you are missing some fruit or nuts just leave it out or substitute a different kind.

Kevin likes to say, "You eat one," while holding a single finger in the air to illustrate just how dense these are. If you like light fluffy pancakes, don't bother making these. They are hearty and filling. (But really I eat more than one at a time. More like 2 on the first serving, 2 for the second serving, and several bites into the second serving I realize that I might explode if I take one more bite.)

Yum. I can hardly wait to dig in.

Is there even a pancake underneath all this topping?

Kamikaze Pancakes

1/2 C whole wheat (or soft wheat) flour
1/2 C rolled oats
1/2 C buckwheat flour (or more rolled oats)
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 T sugar
1/3 C powdered milk
2 eggs
1 C water
2 T oil
1 mashed banana
1/2 C washed blueberries
1/8 C chopped walnuts


Mix all the dry ingredients together. Mix the wet ingredients and beat it a bit with a fork, then mix in the mashed banana. Make a well with the dry ingredients, pour the wet into it and mix until just moistened. Gently fold in the blueberries and walnuts and bake on a hot griddle. Top with more blueberries, banana slices, and walnuts, and also your favorite pancake toppings, such as applesauce or maple syrup.

Banananana Muffins

The goal for today was to make something with pastry flour. Jeffrey was kind enough to give me a whole lotta' soft wheat (which becomes whole wheat pastry flour when ground) a couple of weeks ago, and I have been studiously putting off making anything with it.

BUT NO MORE.

Looking back at the original recipe, I made some pretty wild deviations. Here is the original. These muffins are incredibly moist, especially when you consider that there is no butter or oil. Feel free to cut back on the sugar a bit, and you don't need quite so much baking powder.

If you don't have any soft wheat or whole wheat pastry flour, go ahead and use regular whole wheat flour. Or, if Armageddon is upon us, use white flour. (Just don't tell me about it.)

Grandma Grabbert put a poem into the Burlington cookbook about following the recipe:

I didn't have potatoes, so I substituted rice.

I didn't have paprika, so I used another spice.

I didn't have tomato sauce, so I used tomato paste.

A whole can, not half; I don't believe in waste.

My friend gave me this recipe, she said you couldn't beat it.
There must have been SOMETHING wrong with it, I couldn't eat it.

So there ya have it. Not all substitutions turn out as good as these muffins. Usually (I swear it's true) I try the recipe exactly as it is the first time, so I don't end up writing off too many recipes because of my wild ideas on how to improve them before I even make it one time. But, seriously, the original recipe had an ingredient list 4 pages long. I wasn't going to embark on such a crazy adventure. So I shortened it by combining similar ingredients.

Banana Muffins

1 1/4 C whole wheat pastry flour

1 C rolled oats

1 T baking powder

1/2 t salt

3/4 C yogurt

1/4 C applesauce

1/2 C maple syrup

1 egg

1 t vanilla

2 large bananas, mashed

1/4 C chopped pecans

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. Mix wet ingredients together in a small bowl. Make a well with the dry ingredients and pour the wet bowl into it. Fold until barely combined and spoon into muffin cups. Sprinkle with chopped pecans. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Sugarless Coconut Cookies

These wonderful coconut cookies are just what the doctor ordered. They are sweetened with bananas, sweetened coconut and chocolate. Yum-o.


First, mash up 3 bananas. I felt really clever when I thought of the potato ricer, thinking it would create perfectly mashed bananas. It turned into a gloppy mess, but the bananas got mashed.


A cookie scoop makes life a lot better. If you don't have a cookie scoop, go out right now and get one. They are fabulous. With a cookie scoop you can make cookies three times as fast, you don't have to put your grubby hands on the cookie, and you can gain even more weight (easy cookies get made much more frequently, and therefore, you eat many, many more cookies.) But this is about why you should get a cookie scoop, so forget that last thing.

Smash them down a bit - these guys don't flatten at all in the oven. Then realize that I forgot to put in the chocolate chips. *GASP* That will never do. Put everything back in the bowl and throw in some chocolate chips.

Ahhh...that's better. A tray of perfectly flattened cookies ready for the oven.

And here they are - all packed up and ready to be delivered. Will you be my friend if I bring you cookies once in a while?

This adorable box is from Sweet Celebrations. I went to get some dipping chocolate, only to be affronted by a "Going Out Of Business" sign on the front door. Sheesh. They were out of chocolate, but I got a bunch of cookie cutters, goodie boxes, and cupcake liners.


Coconut Cookie Recipe:

3 large ripe bananas, well mashed
1 t vanilla
1/4 C coconut oil - barely warm so it isn't solid
2 C rolled oats
1/2 C flax meal - or almond meal (ground up almonds)
1/3 C coconut
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
6 ounces chocolate chips (1/2 a bag)

Mix it all together and bake at 350 for 13 minutes, until they start to get golden brown.