Double-Chocolate Banana Bread

*We had this for our FHE treat.  It was deliciously rich.  A good way to use ripe bananas.  If you love, love, love chocolate, you'll love this; but beware, it is very rich.

Ingredients:
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1/3 c vegetable oil
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa
1 t baking soda
1 1/4 c mashed ripe bananas (about 3)
1 c semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1.  Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Spray bottom of 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2.  In large bowl, beat sugar, eggs and oil at medium speed until mixed.  Beat in vanilla.  In medium bowl, stir together flour, cocoa and baking soda; beat into sugar mixture at low speed just until combined (batter will be very thick).  Stir in bananas and chocolate chips.
3.  Spoon batter into pan.  Bake 60 to 70 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes.  Remove frompan; cool completely on wire rack.

Cranberry Upside-down Muffins

¾ c whole-berry cranberry sauce
¼ c firmly packed brown sugar
2 c all-purpose flour
2 T sugar
3 t baking powder
½ t salt
1 c skim milk
¼ c vegetable oil
1 t grated orange peel
2 egg whites

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place wire rack over sheet of waxed paper. Spray 12 medium muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray. Spoon 1 T cranberry sauce into each muffin cup. Top each with 1 t brown sugar.

2. In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt; mix well. In small bowl, combine milk, oil, orange peel and egg whites; blend well. Add to flour mixture all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened. Divide batter evenly over cranberries and brown sugar in muffin cups.

3. Bake for 14 to 18 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 1 minute. Run knife around edges of cups to loose. Invert muffins onto wire rack over waxed paper; remove pan. Cool 5 minutes. Serve warm.

*When I asked Jacob to rate these, he replied, "On a scale of 1 to 5000, 5000!"  He tends to rate in the extremes, though; he either loves it or if he doesn't (even if he eats it), he gives it a rating of 1.  The muffins were biscuit-like, kind of heavy, but then I did use just one whole egg instead of 2 egg whites.  I don't know how they would have turned out without muffin cups--the cups definately helped keep the cranberry sauce together.  This is an excellent way for me to use left-over cranberry sauce and all my kids ate at least 2 while they were still warm!  Better than expected.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes Secret Recipe

Prep Time: 15 Min
Cook Time: 30 Min
Ready In: 45 Min

Ingredients

3 pounds unpeeled red potatoes, quartered
1/2 pound butter, room temperature (or less)
3 ounces Romano cheese, grated
2 tablespoons and 2-3/4 teaspoons chopped garlic (abut 4-5 cloves)
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
 
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm, about 30 minutes; drain. Stir in butter, cheese, garlic, salt and oregano. Mash with a potato masher or with an electric mixer.
 
*This was unbelievably delicious with roasted garlic. To roast garlic: slice the top portion off 1/2 head of garlic and remove excess papery skin. Drizzle olive oil on top and season with salt. Wrap garlic tightly in foil and place in oven preheated at 375F for 35 minutes.  When ready to add to potatoes, just squeeze the garlic out of the papery skin into the mixing pot, no need to mince.

I used a blend of Parmesan, Romano, & Asiago cheese. 

Crispy Chicken Costolleta

What a find!  Definately a bit of work, but well worth it! Yum.....
(Copycat of the Cheesecake Factory's Crispy Chicken Costolleta)

Serves 4

Crispy Chicken
4 chicken breasts, cut horizontally, and pounded to about 1/4 inch thick, or use chicken cutlets.
Lemon zest of 2 lemons
1 1/2 cups plain bread crumbs
2 Tablespoons Freshly grated Parmesan (optional)
2 eggs, whisked with 2 T water
3 Tablespoons flour
1 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp kosher salt

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Zest two lemons. Bake zest for about 5 minutes until dry. On one plate combine flour, pepper and salt. On another plate combine eggs and water, whisk until combined. On another plate combine dry lemon zest, bread crumbs and cheese. Place pounded chicken in the flour, coating well, followed by the egg mixture and the bread crumbs. Heat 2 Tablespoons olive oil and 1 Tablespoon butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Place chicken in pan and cook on each side about 5 minutes until middle is no longer pink. You will need to work in batches, adding more oil and butter as needed. Keep chicken warm in oven at 250 degrees.

Lemon Sauce
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 tablespoon canola oil
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup plus 1 T fresh lemon juice
1/8 cup chicken stock
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Over medium heat in a fairly large saucepan heat canola oil. Add minced garlic and saute about 3 minutes on low. Add whipping cream and boil until reduced by one-third. Add Dijon, lemon juice, chicken stock and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter until melted.

Serve chicken with lemon sauce and garlic mashed potatoes.

*We love this meal, though I haven't quite perfected the lemon sauce, be sure not to saute the garlic too long as it cooks fast (I give that 4 stars).  The chicken is delicious, the secret is to pound it thin (5 stars).  I only had seasoned bread crumbs--about 1 cup is sufficient.

Waffles

*Thanks, Em!  I've been looking for a waffle recipe made with egg whites.  These were tasty--the kids ate the first half dozen without butter or syrup (I did add blueberries and raspberries to the batter).  If only I had a larger waffle iron that wasn't so hard to clean, I'd saw goodbye to Eggo's and make this more of a regular at my home.

3 ½ cup of flour
6 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs yolks beaten
3 ½ cup milk
1 cup oil
4 stiffly beaten egg whites

Mix together everything except egg whites.  Mix well.  Fold in egg whites and bake.

Crock Pot Lime Chicken and Rice

Pour a can of chicken broth in the crock-pot. Finely cop 2 cloves of garlic. Squeeze 2 small limes or 1 large lime (appx 1/4 cup) of juice into broth. Add 2 to 4 tbsp of butter and about 1/4 tsp ground thyme. Put in 3 to 4 pieces of chicken. I turn the temp to high for the first hour, then low the rest of the time. Let cook for 8 to 10 hours. The last 15 minutes add 1 cup instant white rice. ( I usually wind up adding appx another half cup).
I always make some corn and mix it together when I serve it. Something about the corn really brings out and compliments the lime.

*Instead of adding instant rice, I just added some leftover rice I had cooked already.  Black beans just seemed to go with this meal as well as a little cilantro.  Jeff and the kids mixed the chicken, rice, beans, and corn together and ate it over chips with a little sour cream.  The next day I had leftovers on a tortilla.

As a side note, I got to use one of my favorite kitchen gadgets for this recipe: the garlic press.  If you love cooking with garlic, this is a must!  I use it weekly!  Though I still get some garlic smell on my fingers (from peeling the garlic), the press saves me from having to finely chop it.  Let me know what gadgets you can't live without--or if you have a secret for getting onion/garlic smell off your fingers!

(Old) Cragio’s Breadsticks

Jacob says, "This makes the picture look better!"

These were huge!  The kids and I had them for lunch (the spaghetti sauce has to count as a veggie, right?)  2 1/2 breadsticks fed us all (1 mom, a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and a 17 month old).  The breadsticks made me reminisce about the good 'ol college days with my sister Amber--you know the days when I spent about $25/week on groceries and then considered it really splurging to spend $5 to get a box of breadsticks from Craigo's to share.  Yum!

3 cups of flour
3 Tbsp Sugar
1 ½ tsp salt
1 ½ Tbsp yeast
2 ½ cups HOT water

Mix dry ingredients, then add water. Kneed with 1 ½ to 2 ¼ cups of flour. Let rise.

Roll out into a rectangle. Put butter, garlic salt, all season salt, and cheese. Twist and bake at 400* for 20 minutes.

*I may have needed to clarified this recipe with Emily, but here's how I made this delicious find.  I put all the dry ingredients in my Kitchen Aid then added the water.  After kneading with my dough hook, it was very wet so instead of adding 1 1/2 to 2 1/4 cups of flour; I think I ended up adding just over 3 cups of flour.  I kneaded it with the dough hook for approximately 10 minutes in all and let rise until it doubled (1 1/2 hours).  Then I punched down the down and rolled it out (using more flour).  I divided the dough into 9 sections and with my hands rolled them out to about 18 inches.  I then braided each piece on top of itself and let them rise in the pan for 45 min.  Looking back, I probably didn't need to add as much flour.  Next, I spread about 1/4 cup of butter on the bread sticks and sprinkled lightly with garlic salt.  Baked them for 12 minutes, removed, added about 1 1/2 cups pizza/mozzarella shredded cheese and sprinkled parmesan cheese, and cooked 8 minutes more. 

**A late note:  After making these a couple of times, I have a few pointers.  Made as directed above, the breadsticks look just like Crago's, but I've had trouble with them being a little on the doughy side in the middle.  I suggested using a large cookie sheet (they will still raise and touch each other) and divide into at least 12 breadsticks.  We love these!