Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: 3-ingredient banana cookies

Posted on April 9, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Hi everyone! Time for another Kitchen Tip Tuesdays post! {Here are links to my previous posts about making the most of oven time and reusing leftovers in new recipes.}

I have a quick recipe to share with you today — it’s an easy and delicious cookie that is also healthy for you! And it only has three ingredients {one of which is chocolate!} 🙂 That’s my kind of recipe!

This would make the perfect sweet dessert, kid-friendly snack, or grab-and-go breakfast. It’s also a great way to use up spotty bananas before they go bad.

All you need to make these babies are:

2 bananas
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup chocolate chips {if desired; I used mini chocolate chips for mine}

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mash bananas in a bowl. Add oatmeal and chocolate chips and stir until well combined.

3. Plop dough onto a greased cookie sheet {I greased mine with coconut oil} and bake for 15-18 minutes.

Done and YUM! How easy is that?

This recipe is also easily customizable to suit your tastes! You can add chopped nuts, raisins, peanut butter, coconut … whatever your taste buds desire!

What are some of your favorite grab-and-go recipes?

———————-

if you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
– peanut butter breakfast cookies
– chocolate strawberry coconut cookies
– 2-ingredient pumpkin spice cookies

baked cinnamon french toast

Posted on March 14, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Do you have stale bread to use up? This recipe for baked cinnamon French toast is a winner! As soon as I saw this drool-worthy recipe on The Pioneer Woman’s blog, I knew I had to make it.

The recipe would be perfect for a weekend brunch, and it’s so easy you could make it on a weekday, too! Here’s my recipe, slightly adapted from The Pioneer Woman’s original version:

baked cinnamon french toast

1 loaf slightly stale sourdough or French bread
8 eggs
2 cups skim milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp cinnamon

for the topping:

1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick cold butter
fresh fruit {optional}

1. Grease a 9 x 13-inch glass baking pan with butter. Tear bread into chunks (or cut into cubes) and evenly distribute in the pan.

2. Beat eggs. Add the milk, cream, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tbsp cinnamon, and vanilla.

3. Pour the egg mixture evenly over bread. Cover tightly and store in the fridge several hours or overnight.

4. In a separate bowl, make the topping: mix flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon, and salt.

5. Cut butter into small pieces.

6. Stir the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles fine pebbles. If you are baking the casserole in the morning, keep the topping in a plastic bag or container in the fridge until ready to bake.

7. When you’re ready to bake the casserole: preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

8. Remove casserole from the fridge and sprinkle flour crumb mixture over the top. {If you’re using fruit, sprinkle on before the crumb mixture. Next time, I’m going to try using apples. I think strawberries would be delicious, too!}

9. Bake for 45 minutes for a softer, more bread pudding texture. Bake 1 hour or more for a firmer, less liquid texture.

10. Scoop out individual portions with a large spoon. Top with more fruit if desired and drizzle with maple syrup.

Enjoy! Store any leftovers covered in the fridge and microwave to reheat. I enjoyed this dish for a decadent breakfast three days in a row. 🙂

How do you add little moments of luxury to your weekday routine?

“make mornings matter” in march!

Posted on March 7, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

“If you eat a frog first thing in the morning, that will probably be the worst thing you do all day.” – Mark Twain.

Source: Frog by David Wagner

Happy Thursday, friends! How is your week going so far?

The always-amazing Crystal over at Money-Saving Mom is hosting a really neat Early to Rise Challenge during the month of March. I have been inspired by her posts, and floored by her {and other participants} wake-up times: 5:33. 6:01. 5:45. A.M.!!

Now to some of you, that is a piece of cake. That is simply routine for you. 5 a.m. and sunrises are a normal part of your day. {My mom is one of those people. Hi, Mom!}

But I have always been a night owl. Maybe it’s related to writing — I often feel more creative late at night, when the world is quiet and I am close to dreamland. {In fact, I titled my short story collection 3 a.m. because that’s when I was up writing many of the stories in the book!} I’ve read that we all have natural body rhythms as either night owls or early birds, and I am definitely in the night owl category. I often joke with my Gramps, who lives out in California, that he and I are on the same time schedule — we go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time; I’m just three hours ahead of him on the clock! 🙂

Still, I like to feel productive, and I’ve found my mornings often set the tone for the rest of my day. If I have a sluggish morning where I wake up, head straight to my computer, check my email first thing, and browse around on Facebook, it will soon be an hour later and I will feel totally crummy. Then I’ll be rushing to “get a start” on my day and very likely the whole entire day will seem like a giant game of catch-up.

If, instead, I wake up, drink two glasses of water, brew some tea and cook a healthy, hearty breakfast, and start the day with one chore I do not want to do or have been putting off — just do it and get it DONE so I don’t have to worry about it anymore — then the entire day seems sunnier, easier, lovelier. I feel on top of things. I feel productive. Even if the task I’ve been putting off takes me a total of three minutes, like yesterday morning, when I called the mechanic who I had been been playing phone tag with the entire day before. I called him first thing when I got up, was done with the task in three minutes, and felt a sense of motivation and accomplishment that carried me through the entire day!

To paraphrase Mark Twain’s quote from the beginning of this post, what “frogs” are you putting off? Think how great you will feel if you get them done first thing and then have the whole day to not worry about it!

Another thing that really gets my day off on a great, energetic note is to do a little bit of exercise first thing in the morning. One of my goals for 2013 is to stretch every day, and I feel so much better the rest of the day if I take a few minutes to stretch my legs and hips when I first get out of bed. I am also trying to motivate myself to get into the routine of doing my sit ups and push ups first thing in morning, before I hop in the shower and eat breakfast. I often feel too tired or busy to do them at night, but I really want to work on building up the strength of my core, and so doing my sit-ups and push-ups are important to me. For the rest of March — and beyond — that is a small goal I am focusing on!

How about you? How do you make your mornings matter? If you’re looking for inspiration, I love this post by Crystal: “15 Things You Can Do Each Morning to Make Your Day More Successful.” I think she gives great advice! And whether your morning starts at 5 a.m. or noon, this is a no-judgment zone! It’s all about what works best for you and your lifestyle. 🙂

goals and meal-plan for the week of 1/27

Posted on January 27, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Hi everyone! Hope you’ve had a lovely weekend! A few snapshots from mine so far:

Oatmeal + blueberries … my favorite cozy wintertime breakfast!

Blender all ready to make homemade hummus!

Here’s how I did on my goals from last week:

write 10 more pages of my YA novel
~~blog about Week 3 Act of Kindness Challenge & complete it myself this week~~
finish reading Best American Short Stories 2012 {I got side-tracked with a Judy Blume adult novel I checked out from the library!}
~~finish grading first assignment for both classes {Professional Email assignment}~~
~~knit 25 rows of the scarf I’m working on~~
~~go through stack of old magazines and purge!~~
~~send thank-you notes to the lovely people I met at the Key West Literary Seminar~~

And here are my goals for this upcoming week:

write 10 more pages of my YA novel
revise first 3 chapters of my thesis novel
blog about Week 4 Act of Kindness Challenge & complete it myself this week
finish grading the next assignment for both classes
submit at least 3 pieces to journals or theater companies
finish reading Best American Short Stories 2012
knit 25 more rows of the scarf I’m working on
clean out & organize filing cabinet

Finally, here are some recipes I’m planning to make this week:

– hummus-crusted chicken
– wheat-berry mock risotto
– cilantro-honey-lime salmon
– pumpkin pie

What are your weekly goals? What’s on your menu plan? Hope it’s another masterpiece of a week!

-Dallas

chocolate-chip banana muffins

Posted on January 8, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

One of the first baking recipes I ever learned to make was my mom’s banana bread. To me, banana bread just tastes like home. And it’s a great recipe for someone like me who hates to waste food. I prefer to eat bananas when they are just ripening, still a little green at the tips. When they begin to get brown spots, I really don’t care for them. But thanks to Mom, I don’t have to worry about them going to waste — I just whip up a batch of banana bread…

…or banana muffins! In the past few years I’ve gotten really into making muffins instead of bread because I just find muffins so much more portable — easy to slip into a lunchbox or grab for breakfast on the way out the door. {That said, you could easily adapt this recipe for a loaf of bread if you’d prefer!}

I added chocolate chips to Mom’s recipe for a little extra treat to start the school year off right. 🙂 Hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

chocolate-chip banana muffins

1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 & 3/4 cup flour {I used whole-wheat flour}
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup ripe mashed bananas {I used two bananas}
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with paper cups and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well.

3. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients.

4. Add a portion of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing well. Then add a portion of the mashed bananas. Continue alternating dry ingredients and mashed bananas until the entire mixture is combined. {Batter will be slightly lumpy due to the bananas.}

5. Add chocolate chips.

6. Spoon batter into paper muffin cups, about 3/4 of the way full.

7. Bake for 22-25 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Enjoy! These are great for breakfast, a mid-afternoon snack, and also make a great healthy dessert!

Hope your week is going great,
-Dallas

what i wore on christmas

Posted on December 26, 2012 by dallaswoodburn

Wow, Christmas seemed to fly by especially fast this year! It was a whirlwind! Writing camp, dinner with friends, my brother’s birthday, coffee with my good friend Erica, my cousin’s bridal shower, Christmas Eve with our extended family, Christmas Day with more family … and now we’re leaving for a road trip up to the Bay Area to see my extended family on my mom’s side. I haven’t seen my grandparents since my brother’s graduation this past summer, and rest of my aunts, uncles, and cousins since last Christmas, and I can’t wait to hug them all and catch up on everything!

So I might be a little MIA the next few days … but I’ll try to get some recipes from my grandma, who is an AMAZING cook, to share with you on here! 🙂

I think my favorite part about Christmas is the big breakfast we cook in my family. We are not usually big breakfast eaters, so it always feels like a treat!

This year my mom took care of the turkey bacon and scrambled eggs while I manned the waffle iron and the boys set the table.

YUM!

Today I’m linking up with Camp Patton to share “What I wore on Christmas” …

I am loving this polka-dot scarf my friend Erica gave me for Christmas {I think she got it from Target} so I decided to make it the centerpiece of my outfit! I paired it with a simple green top, white undershirt, dark skinnies, and my fave brown boots!

I only just managed to get these pictures taken before a certain someone wanted in on the photo fun:

… then at the last minute he decided to be camera-shy and not show his adorable doggy face. Oh, Murray!

I hope your Christmas was filled with love, joy, laughter, family and good food!

Thanks for taking the time to visit this blog … it means so much to me!

With love,
Dallas

marvelous monday: apple-banana oatmeal muffins

Posted on December 3, 2012 by dallaswoodburn

You know how much I love muffins, especially healthy, hearty and delicious muffins that will get your day off to a marvelous start! Here’s another recipe that I found and tweaked slightly to make it more nutritious. I will be enjoying for breakfast all week and I hope you like it, too!

apple-banana oatmeal muffins
{recipe adapted from this one at Rock Recipes}

– 1 & 1/2 cups oatmeal
– 1 cup whole wheat flour
– 1 tsp baking powder
– 1 tsp baking soda
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 2 tsp cinnamon
– 1 tsp nutmeg
– 2 eggs
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– 2/3 cup milk {I used soy milk, but any kind will do!}
– 1/4 cup applesauce {I used no-sugar-added}
– 1/4 cup brown sugar
– 1 ripe banana, mashed

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper wrappers.

2. Peel the banana and mash it until the biggest lumps are out.

3. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, eggs, applesauce, milk and vanilla. Set aside.

4. In a different bowl, mix together oatmeal, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

5. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mixing well.

6. Add in the banana. If batter is too thick, add more applesauce.

7. Spoon batter into muffin tins until they are about 3/4 of the way full.

8. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until a fork inserted in the center comes out clean.

These muffins are SO good served warm! Inspired by Julie at the blog Peanut Butter Fingers, I topped mine with some dark chocolate peanut butter for a healthy breakfast that tasted decadent. It’s the perfect way to get an ordinary day off to a special start!

You can download a printable version of this recipe here: apple banana oatmeal muffins.

Have a marvelous day! 🙂
-Dallas

marvelous monday: grocery store surprises

Posted on November 26, 2012 by dallaswoodburn

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope your Thanksgiving weekend wrapped up well and that you made it home safe if you were celebrating out of town. I am happy to report that Mike and I arrived back safely in Lafayette last night, with enough time to hit up the grocery store, do a bit of work, watch an episode of Arrested Development, put all of our clean laundry away {thanks, Mike’s mom, for letting us do laundry in your lovely machine instead of having to trek to the quarter-eating machines in our apartment complex!} and even put up a few Christmas decorations. The wreath is on our door and my mini tree is on display!

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that add a big smile to your day. I love surprises, and one of my favorite things is to discover a new treat when I’m browsing the grocery store. Look what I found last night:

PUMPKIN SPICE ENGLISH MUFFINS!

I know we are transitioning from autumn into winter, but I remain pumpkin-obsessed. And I’m okay with that!

I enjoyed every bite of a pumpkin spice English muffin for breakfast, half smeared with chocolate peanut butter and the other half with regular peanut butter. I can’t decide which topping I like better. I also want to try cream cheese. I might have to eat another one for a snack later to do further research! 😉

What grocery store finds have you been delighted with lately? Anyone else still obsessed with pumpkin?

Have a marvelous day!
-Dallas

chocolate-chip pumpkin pancakes

Posted on November 11, 2012 by dallaswoodburn

I can’t believe how fast the weekend has flown by! As the saying goes, “Time flies when you’re having fun,” and I’ve been having a super-fun time with my incredible brother in town. {Time also flies when you’re taking a timed test with only 240 minutes to answer 230 obscure literature and poetry questions … but in a different way.} <–SO glad to be done with the GRE test! 🙂

This weekend we’ve given Greg a tour of West Lafayette, including:

our favorite restaurants {Nine Irish Brothers! Lafayette Brewing Co!}
an epic evening of pinball at Main Street Amusements {Greg is a pinball wizard}
a really imaginative and gripping play called “The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart” presented by the National Theatre of Scotland through Purdue Convocations
many episodes of New Girl {I guess this isn’t limited to West Lafayette, but it’s been a fun part of the weekend!}
a tour of Purdue’s campus and a walk across the bridge from West Lafayette into Lafayette
laughing so hard tears have streamed down my face
fresh-baked cookies from Insomnia Cookies, an adorable late-night cookie shop close to Purdue’s campus
and a basketball game this afternoon, where Purdue soundly defeated Hofstra {boiler UP!}

Greg is coming with me tomorrow to school, where he’s giving a presentation on social entrepreneurship to my classes. {He’s the founder of a nonprofit organization called Give Running — learn more about it here!} I’m so excited to show him off to my students.

For the finale of pumpkin week, I have a delicious lazy Sunday morning recipe to share with you: pumpkin chocolate-chip pancakes!

pumpkin chocolate-chip pancakes

– 1 tsp butter
– 1 cup pancake mix
– 3/4 cup water
– 1/4 cup pumpkin
– 1 tsp cinnamon
– 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
– 1 tsp vanilla extract
– handful of chocolate chips

1. Stir together pancake mix, water, pumpkin, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and vanilla extract. Let batter rest for a couple minutes.

2. Heat skillet to medium-low and grease with a little butter.

3. Drop 1/4 cup batter into pan and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Cook until batter starts to bubble in the middle, then flip over and cook about 3-4 minutes on the other side.

Serve warm and melty, with syrup if desired!

Hope your weekend was wonderful! Thanks for joining in with me on this week of pumpkin recipes — I had so much fun!

Here’s a recap if you missed anything:

– pumpkin spice oatmeal
– pumpkin oatmeal cookies
– savory pumpkin and kale stew
– pumpkin pasta
– perfect pumpkin pie

Goodnight!
-Dallas

marvelous monday: pumpkin week!

Posted on November 5, 2012 by dallaswoodburn

Happy Monday, everyone! How was your weekend? I had one of my favorite types of weekend: cozy at home, laid-back, while also productive. {Or, as my brother calls it, “tcb-time: taking care of business!”} I am taking the GRE Subject Exam in literature next weekend and spent a good chunk of time studying for the test using a study guide I got from the Princeton Review, which is amazingly helpful and has actually been cracking me up quite a bit with the authors’ witty jabs and digs at the test. {Mike probably thinks I am going crazy from too much studying when he looks over and sees me giggling over my test book.} If you or someone you know is studying for the GRE or a GRE Subject Exam, I’d highly recommend their study guides!

Another reason I am feeling so jazzed this morning: my brother is coming to visit on Thursday! He’s staying for a long weekend and I am SO excited to see him. He is one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met and has been my best friend since he was born and I was two and a half years old. 🙂 I feel really blessed that we are so close and that he still wants to spend time with his big sister. I am going to be on pins-and-needles driving to the airport after class on Thursday afternoon!

Greg and me at his college graduation this past May. I’m so proud of him!

As we transition from October into November, I had a realization: Halloween might be over, but I am *SO* not done with pumpkin yet! I feel like I haven’t even begun to take advantage of this marvelous squash in my autumn cooking. So, this week on the blog, I bring to you Pumpkin Week! Every day I’ll post a new pumpkin recipe, spanning all meals of the day. I’m hoping this week will motivate me to try all these pumpkin recipes I’ve stored up {like this amazing list from Two Peas & Their Pod} and might also inspire you to try some new recipes yourself!

Today we start with breakfast. I was inspired by Julie at Peanut Butter Fingers to work some pumpkin goodness into my morning batch of oats. It was easy and delicious — like having a healthy version of pumpkin pie to start the day off right! Plus, I love oatmeal on cold winter days. It warms my belly and just gets me into a happy mood.

pumpkin spice oatmeal

– 1/2 cup oats
– 1/3 cup milk {I like vanilla rice milk, but soy milk, almond milk, or just plain old dairy milk would all work}
– 1/4 cup pumpkin
– 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
– 1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl and stir together. Microwave for 2-3 minutes {depending on your microwave’s power} until desired consistency. I like my oatmeal pretty thick; my mom loves hers watery. It’s a preference thing!

Enjoy warm. Add more cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice as desired. YUM!

What are some of your favorite pumpkin recipes? I’m looking forward to sharing more with you tomorrow. Hope you have a marvelous day!

-Dallas 🙂

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