Banana Current Bread

Being pregnant, is has not been easy lately to find food that my stomach is okay with. Sometimes all I have to do it look at it to know it will not be good for me to eat. Then I saw a picture of this Banana Current Bread and I could smell it cooking already! Is is a sweet simple snack the provides calcium, fiber and folate that my kids will eat. It also provides me with some important nutrients during pregnancy. It was a win win!

SERVES: 10
PREP TIME: 15 minutes
COOK TIME: 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse (kosher) salt
• 3 large, ripe bananas, peeled and mashed (about 2 cups)
• 1 cup dried currants
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2/3 cup buttermilk
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Coat a 9-inch-by-5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Whisk together first seven ingredients (all-purpose flour through salt) in a medium bowl; set aside.

Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in flour mixture and mix well. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 30 minutes; then fold a piece of aluminum foil in half and place loosely over bread to form a tent. Bake 30 minutes more, or until cooked through. Cool for 10 minutes in pan; remove from pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Cooking with the kids - Valentines Day Ice Cream Sandwiches

This is the recipe that I was planning to have this week. I was going to make it and photo it and get the kids rating as well. Then my 4 year old got sick. We rushed her to the ER because we thought it was a complication from her swallowing the connect 4 piece on Jan. 11. We had yet to see it 'leave' her body. Afraid she would need surgery (what we were told was an option if she got sick from it), I got nothing done. However my baby girl at sometime (probably at night) got it out and all she has is a stomach bug, thank you god.

Here is a link to Valentines Day Ice Cream Sandwiches. There is no picture which is a shame, I love pictures. If someone makes it before me and gets a chance to post one, please do.

Enjoy!

Cooking with the kids (Monkey bread)

I like to tell my kiddos that they are monkeys. Some days this seems true with them running around and bouncing off furniture. So naturally when my sister shared the recipe for Monkey Bread with me, I had to make it with the kids. I changes it some from the first time I made it and I will include that here. Monkey Bread Time: LOL, you know where I stand with that and cooking with kids Ingredients: 1 Gallon size bag (food storage or ziploc will do) 1 (12 ounce) package of refrigerated biscuit dough I found a 16 ounce of Pillsbury home style biscuit dough in a can

1/3 cup white sugar ( I used the next size up 1/2 cup and left it out to add more later )

3/4 Teaspoon ground cinnamon ( I used 2 tsp and left it out to add some more later)

2 tbl. spoons and 2 tsp of margarine/butter

1/3 cup packed brown sugar ( I used 1/2 cup)

Something that is not in the original recipe that I used it vanilla extract. I use a generic store brand. I use this because the first time the outside of the dough tasted good but the inside was bland. I cut up the biscuits into fours and poked holes in them. The I let them sit in some vanilla extract. I did this first so there was enough time to soak.

Cooking:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9 or 10 inch tube pan. I used my bread loaf pan, never actually measured it and it turned out fine.

2. Mix white sugar and cinnamon in plastic bag. Take your quartered biscuit pieces now. Out 3-4 in at a time and shake them (kids loved this!) Arrange pieces at the bottom of your pan. The sugar and cinnamon coating started to get pretty weak towards the end so I added more in. Just eye ball it. You know what your family likes.

3.In a small sauce pan, melt the margarine with the brown sugar over medium heat. I can be impatient so I used high heat and stayed there to stir it. Boil for 1 minute (this is when I turned the heat down some). Pour over the biscuits.

4.Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a plate. I put the plate on top and flip it all together.

DO NOT CUT! Take all the fun out of it for your kids to pull it apart. This will stay delicious for 2 days. I kept mine in the microwave and when we wanted more, I nuked it on high for 1 1/2 mins.

Lessons learned: As I home-school I think there is a lesson in everything. Here my kids first learned how to take turns. The older ones also learned compassion with the fact that there was also things that their little 2 year old sister could do. They learned some more math skills with measuring out the ingredients and home-economics with using the stove top (with me watching and ready to take over if needed) and the oven. You could even teach how to estimate here. Have them guess how many pieces there are in all and with that you could also do fractions. See lessons just start coming out! Of course there are times when the only lesson that needs to be taught is spending time together and the memories made. My best childhood memory is making popcorn balls with my mom and while we waited, dancing the tango in the kitchen.

Cooking with the kids (recipe included)

With a little patience you can cook with your kids. Just make sure that you have age appropriate tasks for them and there will be nothing but smiles (and some good memories).

I was craving some Green Bean casserole so that is what we made. For this you really need to have fresh green beans. I tried it once with canned and then swore I would never make it again! Don't be afraid of fresh food. I know it is easier to pick up the cans of veggies at the market but really it is cheaper if you do it yourself. For example: These greens need to be cleaned (ends snapped off) and halved. Right above them for $2 more there they were already done. No thank you. I have three kids and a husband to feed. I can do the work myself.

So now that you have your green beans you are going to need some assistants.


Here are mine. So cute!

Now at first I was going to have red here help snap the ends off the green beans but that proved too difficult for her. So I snapped them off. I showed her how to properly use a knife and she cut them into halves. Her 2 year old sister here got the halves and put them in the measuring cup and later the coliander. They had a blast and so did I. We then dragged a chair over to the sink and they each got a turn washing the green beans. Red got a pot to boil the green beans in and we set the timer for 10 minutes. In that time we cleaned our mess and then put the scraps in a bowl for the compost pile out back ( I still need to make it though ). Check your green beans maybe at 6 minutes to see of they are fork tender. As soon as they are, drain. Ready to eat or in our case use in our recipe.

Green Bean Casserole (can also be made the day ahead and reheated, i'll tell you that later)

Time: LOL You are cooking with kids. It'll take longer but taste better.

Ingredients:
2 cans (10 3/4 ounce ea) of Condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 Cup Milk
2 tsp. soy sauce
1/4 tsp black pepper. Taste better with freshly ground pepper corns
8 cups cooked green beans (we did that above)
2 2/3 cups Frenches Fried Onions

Time to put it all together!

Put the soup, milk, soy sauce, black pepper, beans and 1 1/3 cups onions in a 3 QT casserole dish. If you are making this a day ahead omit the onions.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 miutes or until it is bubbling. Stir the mixture and top with remaining onions. I like to put them on the outside perimeter on the dish. Again if you are making this a day ahead omit the onions

Bake for another 5 minutes or until the onions are a golden brown. I had the assistants watch through the oven door and 'tell' me when it was done. I still set the time though because with littl ones you never know who will hit who first. I would end up forgetting that I was cooking. Bad I know.

Now you are done! This is a great recipe to do together. With homeschool and my own buisness
it can get hard to carve out the time. Planning ahead, even if it is that morining and only for that day helps. I like to set goals of what I would like to accomplish for the day rather than a To Do List. Just a play on words that makes a difference with me.

Okay now for if you make this dish a day ahead.....

You have just taken it out of the oven. I like to put it on my wire cookie rack to cool. Let cool to room temp. Cover will alum. foil and put in fridge.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Take alum. foil off . Now stir in those 1 1/3 cups of onions. Replace alum. foil losely over your casserole dish. This will help keep the heat in. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until bubbling. This way you know it is heated through. To cut down on cooking time you can set it for 15 mintues and at your halfway mark, stir it. When bubbling, add the remaining onions. Cook for additional 5 minutes or until they are golden brown. I almost think it tastes better this way.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. It really looks like a lot of work went into it when in reality it didn't. It is great for a homeschool lesson. Little ones can count the green beans, use them for addition, subtraction. They can also sort from big to small and group like ones together. Older ones can use them for muliplication and divison. They can also use the measuring cup. Sneak the lessons in whenever you can. Cooking is a great way to do it.Here is peanut mixing the ingredients before we add the green beans. She is an expert at this. :)