Simple Banana Nut Bread

It's been a while since I've posted a recipe for you fine folks.  Here's a super easy and delicious one that Trav and I made the other night to get rid of the scary looking bananas I had taking up space in the freezer.  I know that sounds terribly appetizing, but they work great for banana bread.  Anytime you have bananas that are on the verge of going bad, put them in your freezer whole and save them for a rainy day when you just have to have some yummy banana bread.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Crisco

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 bananas

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp lemon juice

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 chopped nuts (I use pecans)

Preheat your oven to 350.

Cream crisco and sugar. 

 Add eggs and beat well.  Take a second to kiss your sweet little helper.

 Mash up your bananas with a fork.

Add bananas to mixer along with milk and lemon juice and mix well.

 Add dry ingredients and mix well.

 Stir in chopped nuts.

 Pour into well greased loaf pan,

 and bake at 350 for approx 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean in the center.

Your bread will rise significantly while baking.

Allow the pan to cool for a few minutes, then gently lay pan on the side and ease the bread out to cool on a clean rag.  Slice up into thick pieces, and serve with butter or my favorite, cream cheese.

Nummmmmmmy. 

And TOTALLY fat free.  Yep...

Enjoy, my friends!  Thank you so much for your continued support.

XO

~Penny Wenny

Fresh Peach Dessert

My darling friend let me pick a bunch of delicious peaches off of her tree the other day, so I was thrilled to make one of my favorite summer/ fall desserts.  If you're a peach lover, I am sure you will love it also.  In my book you simply can't go wrong with fresh peaches, cream cheese, and nilla wafers all involved in one delightful concoction. mmmmm....

The unfortunate part about this fabulous recipe is that it's a bit on the time consuming process; not difficult at all, just time consuming.  Plan on making this while you work on other projects in the meantime. 

Ingredients
Crust:

• 1 cup crushed Vanilla Wafers
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cube butter, melted

Filling:

• 11 oz. cream cheese or neufchatel cheese (lower fat but works great for baking), softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 small container cool whip

Topping:

• 5 cups fresh, peeled and sliced peaches
• 1/4 cup sugar
• lemon juice
• orange juice
• 3 TBS cornstarch
• 2 TBS butter
• pinch of salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, sprinkle sliced peaches with fresh lemon juice (I used 1/2 a lemon) and the sugar.  Set aside and allow the mix to stand for an hour while you make the crust and filling.

Mix together crust ingredients in a bowl, and spread into a 9x13 pan. 

Bake for 25 minutes, or until crust is lightly golden on the edges.

Allow crust to cool while you start working on the filling.  Mix all ingredients together with beaters until smooth and creamy.

Spread over cooled crust.

Are you drooling yet?

Put the pan back in the fridge to cool while you finish the peach topping.

Strain the juice from the peaches and set peaches aside.

Add fresh lemon and orange juice to the strained juice until you have 1 cup of juice.  (I used the remaining half of a lemon, and filled the rest with orange juice).

Place juice in a saucepan, add cornstarch and stir well to blend.

Cook over low heat until mixture thickens, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat, and fold in butter and fruit.

Allow mixture to cool (I let it sit in the fridge for a little while) and then spread mixture over the cooled filling.

Check out those beautiful layers...

Enjoy!

~PW

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BEST. SALSA. EVER.

I am not kidding.  This recipe is for the BEST salsa I have ever had... in my life.  It's quite bold to say, but it is true.

My neighbor Marti asked if she could have a few tomatoes from my garden to finish the salsa recipe she and her friend who was in town visiting her were making.  She said she'd pay me back in some of the fresh salsa.  I told her to please not bring me any since I still had a giant batch I made myself in my fridge that just wasn't being eaten fast enough (we sort of had tomatoes growing out our ears this year).  Well, Marti denied my request and brought some over to me shortly after it was made.  In about 5 minutes flat, I had inhaled the entire container's worth.  It was, quite simply put, the BEST salsa I have ever had. 

Marti's friend Amber shared this recipe with me, which I am now sharing with you fortunate folks. 

Amber's BEST EVER salsa

Ingredients

• 10-12 roma tomatoes
• 1 large white onion  (I used 1/2 since my onion was huge and I felt like it was plenty)
• 1 full head of garlic (approx 8-10 cloves)
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 6-8 limes
• 4 cans El Pato Salsa (In the yellow can, one side says "Salsa de chile fresco" and the other says "Tomato Sauce"
• up to 1 can El Pato Jalapeno Salsa (green can) depending on your desired "heat"
• salt to taste (at least 1-2 tsp)

*** Note- you can find the El Pato products in the Latin foods aisle of your grocery store.  Walmart carries it if your other stores don't. ***

Directions

Chop tomatoes, white onion, and cilantro. Amber uses her Pampered chef chopper to get the perfect sized chunks for the tomatoes.  You can also use this for your onion and cilantro.

Mince your garlic cloves. I also used the chopper for the garlic, and just chopped longer than I did with the tomatoes until they were minced to very small pieces. It worked perfectly.  

Add the juice of 6-8 limes (I used 6).  My sister Ali taught me to first microwave your limes so that they can be juiced more easily. 

I did this for about 20 seconds, then kneaded the limes with the palm of my hand before cutting in half and juicing into the bowl. 

You can also use Oprah's trick of squeezing the last little bit out using you teeth.  I actually had to try this myself after watching the episode where she and Gayle went camping and it seriously works!  However, the potency of the oil from the lime rinds in my teeth was about enough to kill me.  Try it and you'll know what I'm talking about.  :)

Combine all of the above ingredients in a bowl with the 4 cans El Pato salsa de chile fresco/tomato sauce, and then taste for flavor. 

If this is spicy enough for you, skip the Jalapeno salsa.  If not, slowly add in the jalapeno salsa until it's perfect for you.  I like the full can.  Season with salt to taste. 

The last and most important step is to hide the bowl away from anyone who may encounter it.  You will want to eat this entire batch by yourself... I promise.

I have decided that what makes this salsa unique from the other recipes I typically make is the amount of limes and the amazing flavor from the El Pato sauce.  It's so divine....If you don't love the chunks, you can also mix all of the ingredients together in the food processor for a more blended salsa.

If you do happen to have more than you need, I would suggest canning some.  I saved just enough to can one jar's worth for experimentation. 

I want to know if the flavor is still as strong and delicious.  I'll be sure to let you know when I pull it out in the dreaded winter months when I am wishing I could run out back and harvest a bajillion tomatoes again...

If you need me in the meantime, I'll be sitting back on my couch with a diet cherry coke in hand as I continue to chomp on my chips and BEST. SALSA. EVER.

Enjoy your Sunday, my friends.  :)

~PW

Peanut Curried Chicken

To all of my curry loving peeps out there- this one is for you. Here's a recap of my sweets' and my conversation from the other night when I heated up this amazing dish from the Freezer Meal Night.

• Sweets:  (mouth full of food and about to inhale a second forkful) How many more bags of this recipe did you make?
• Me: Just this one.
• Sweets: Uh oh. Let's steal your sister's and mom's. 
• Me: (immediately texting away to all who joined me for the freezer meal night) We ate the curried chicken tonight and it is awful.  I feel so horrible for suggesting this meal.  We're willing to sacrifice one of our lasagna dishes for your curried chicken.  So sorry!

Unfortunately the plot didn't work as we had hoped.  Everyone had already eaten theirs and instead of laughing at the joke they were a bit slow and questioned why we didn't like it when they all loved it.

I promise it was funny when it happened.  Reading it now, it just looks like a waste of your time.  Sorry folks...

The majority of this recipe come from Rachel Ray and can be viewed here.  This version has been adapted to Penny Wenny's liking (and heat removed to satisfy all the kiddos that we have to feed).

Peanut Curried Chicken

 For the Freezer Meal Night, this recipe was multiplied by 4 and then divided up among 5 families.  If you only intend to make this for your family, only do a quarter of each ingredient.

Source: Rachael Ray

Ingredients:

4 small bunches green onions, coarsely chopped                   

4 inch cube ginger, peeled and grated                                   

8 TBSP minced garlic                                                

2 cups cilantro leaves (approx 2 bunches)                  

2 containers of Medium Curry blocks (or 10 TBSP curry powder).  The blocks give you a much more authentic indian flavor

4 cans chicken broth                                                  

4 TBSP veggie oil                                                                  

15 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces             

1 1/3 cup chunky peanut butter                                                         

3 cans coconut milk               

To Prepare:

Combine scallions, ginger, garlic, cilantro, curry powder and a splash of chicken broth in mixing bowl and whisk into a paste. 

Heat a large skillet over medium heat with oil.  Add chicken to pan and brown, 2-3 minutes.  Add spice paste and stir 1 minute to combine.  Add peanut butter to the pan and whisk in chicken broth.  Bring to a bubble and whisk in coconut milk, lower heat and simmer 7-8 minutes.

To freeze (optional):

 Ladle into zip loc freezer bags.  Cool in refrigerator.  Seal bag and freeze until ready to serve.

To serve:

 Defrost chicken in refrigerator the day prior to serving.  Heat in skillet over low heat until heated through. .

OPTIONAL: Add red pepper flakes for heat if desired.  Serve over rice

Our house smelled like Indian Heaven while this was heating up.  Even little Trav couldn't wait to dig in (sitting at Daddy's place of course...)

And yes, his shirt really does say "Dude your girlfriend keeps checking me out".  He's a lady's man for sure.

 I have to end this post with the best quote I heard today from my friend Heidi, the Shoeologist:

"When God closes one door, he opens a box of girl scout cookies".

That He does, Heidi.  I am incredibly sad to say however that I have yet to eat my first girl scout cookie of the season and typically by now I have inhaled at least 3 boxes.  Am I on a diet, you ask?  Watching my calories?  Trying to eat healthier?  Heavens no.  I just never remembered to order them.  I am dying!  If anyone just so happens to drop some off at my house tomorrow morning for my breakfast, I promise I won't object. MMMkay, thanks.

This darling Shoeologist is hosting a giveaway for a free pair of adorable Lucha shoes in gray or red.  Hop on over HERE and enter to win.  They are sooo my style.

I'm sharing this recipe with:


~PW