Posted on No Comments on Strawberry Banana Bread

Strawberry Banana Bread

Strawberry Banana Bread

As summer comes to a close it’s time to take advantage of the last of those Summer berries. Many of our local grocery stores have had strawberries and blueberries on sale for the last few weeks, so we’re stocking up! Both of our kids go through blueberries like their lives depend on it (I promise we feed them!), and strawberries with a few chocolate chips have been a favorite after-dinner treat this Summer.

We’re big fans of using up those extra ripe bananas by making banana bread, but with all the extra berries on hand, we decided to try a fun twist on the classic banana bread. This strawberry banana bread was easy to throw together and really took our banana bread to the next level. You have to try it!

I think I’ll go buy more strawberries so we can make a few more batches before the pumpkin spice season is officially upon us.

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick butter (or 1/2 cup), softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 3 ripe bananas, mashed
  • 1½ cups fresh strawberries chopped
    • mix with a spoonful of flour to prevent the strawberries from sinking to the bottom of the loaf
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt

Strawberry Banana Bread Recipe

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375F degrees.
  2. Lightly coat two loaf pans with nonstick cooking spray.
  3. In a large bowl, (I use my stand mixer), cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
  4. Add beaten eggs to sugar mixture and mix until incorporated.
  5. Add mashed bananas to the mixture and stir to combine.
  6. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt.
  7. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet mixture and stir until flour is just combined. Be careful not to overmix.
  8. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans and bake at 375 F for 15 minutes.
  9. Lower oven temp to 350 F and bake for an additional 25-30 minutes until slightly golden and cooked through.
  10. Let stand and cool before removing from pans.

Recipe from Recipe Critic

Posted on No Comments on Back to School

Back to School

It’s that time of year again. Our favorite little energy-filled four-year-old boy heads back to preschool next week. I am so ready and not at all ready to get back to the daily grind.

family

One of the best perks of having a professor husband has to be spending Summer together as a family. Summer has flown by, but we have lived our school-free lives to the fullest. We’ve gone for walks around the neighborhood, watched the fireflies dance in our backyard, stargazed (D has been obsessed with stars and space recently), taken full advantage of our neighborhood pool, took an amazing road trip across the country to see friends and family, and consumed way too much ice cream.

Little Man Ice Cream

Wait…is there such a thing as too much ice cream?

The time has come to get back to backpacks, markers, construction paper, pick-ups and drop-offs, school friends, afterschool snacks, and a consistent bedtime again. We’ve got this! Wishing everyone lots of luck for a happy, safe school year full of memory making!

Posted on No Comments on S’mores Cookies

S’mores Cookies

S'mores Cookies

S’mores = Summer in our family. We love roasting marshmallows to make classic S’mores and pretty much have to try any food that has “S’mores” on the label.  Every Summer we have to make a Dairy Queen trip when they bring back the S’mores Blizzard for a limited time. We love Target’s Market Pantry brand S’mores ice cream, and they’ve even started to sell the flavor year-round to feed our S’mores addiction. Give it a try if you haven’t already! This past Christmas, we even tried Stephen’s S’mores hot chocolate and it was surprisingly yummy. All this to say, a cookie creation that merges our love of S’mores with the beloved chocolate chip cookie was bound to be a hit in this house.

If you can’t find the marshmallow bits at the store, this recipe can be a little bit of work, but trust me when I say that the payoff is totally worth it. Ooey gooey marshmallow, chocolate, and a swirl of graham cracker crumbs. Yum!

We may have a new favorite cookie on our hands…

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 9 graham crackers, finely crushed (1 sleeve of graham crackers usually equals about a cup of crumbs)
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup miniature Mallow Bits or torn marshmallow pieces
  • 1.5  cups chopped Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar or chocolate chips 
  • 1 tsp salt

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
  2. Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.
  3. Add in the vanilla and the eggs one at a time, mixing and scraping down the sides of the bowl.
  4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, and salt.
  5. Slowly add the dry ingredient mixture into the wet mixture.  Mix until just combined.
  6. Fold in the chocolate and marshmallow bits.
  7. Scoop dough by the spoonful onto a prepared baking sheet (parchment paper or a silicone mat — we love our Silpat!).
  8. Bake for 10 minutes. They may be a little soft in the center but will firm up after resting for a few minutes.

Recipe from Dessert Now Dinner Later