Banana Bread

I had always heard how easy banana bread was to make, but I was always intimidated by the bananas. I know that sounds silly, but it is the truth. I don't like bananas and the thought of turning squishy, over ripe bananas with their greasy black peels into something edible was more than I could fathom. Well, when cleaning up my kitchen table the other day, I found some of those dark nasty bananas taunting me. My husband loves bananas, but never seems to eat the whole bunch in time. I had frozen some before thinking "I'll tackle this fear later", but this time when I found them, I decided now was the time. Brian pulled up a recipe and to work I went. It was so dang easy and now I think I will make it more often. I don't have a bread loaf pan (yet), so I made 12 regular sized muffins. They turned out great!

Here is what you need:

3 to 4 bananas
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
A pinch of salt
1 1/2 cup flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. With a wooden spoon, mash the bananas. Then, mix the butter into the bananas. Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt in and mix. Add the flour last and mix well. Pour into a 4 x 8 inch loaf pan or a regular sized muffin tin. Bake 1 hour for loaf pan and 25-30 minutes in the muffin tin. Cool and remove from pan. Enjoy!

Whip Cream

To make whip cream, all you need is heavy whipping cream and a mixer. Pour the whipping cream in a bowl and mix until it is creamy and soft peaks form. Serve with your favorite pie. :)

Pumpkin Pie

So, this is the pie that got me into this whole pie mess. It is all made from scratch and it really helped me venture into a whole new territory with baking pies.

Ingredients:

1 pastry crust
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/4 cups fresh pumpkin puree (you can buy canned if you don't have fresh)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp butter melted
1 tbsp dark molasses
A pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat milk in a saucepan over medium heat until it just starts to bubble around the edges. Remove milk from heat. Beat eggs lightly in a large bowl until they are frothy. Add scalded milk, stirring constantly (I LOVED my Kitchen Aid at this point). Stir in pumpkin, butter, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, ginger and salt. Whisk until thoroughly blended. Pour mixture into prepared crust. Bake until center is firm (approximately 45 minutes). Allow pie to cool completely. Serve with whipped cream (to make your own, click here - it is incredibly easy!!!).

Apple Pie

Out of the four pies I made for Thanksgiving, this was the most time consuming, but also brought the most compliments. Here is what you need:

2 pie crusts
8 cups sliced, peeled baking apples - about 3 lbs. (I used granny smith, but you can also use cortland and Jonathan or mix it up between the three types)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk

In a large bowl, toss the sliced apples with lemon juice. Combine the sugars, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add apples and toss to coat them with the dry mixture. Fill a pastry lined 9 inch pie plate with the apple mixture. Dot with butter. Place the second crust over the top of the pie. Cut slits in top of crust to vent. Seal the edges of the crust with a fork. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolk and milk together. Brush the mixture over the top crust. Sprinkle the top of the pie with white sugar. Bake the pie at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake 40-45 minutes more or until crust is golden and filling is bubbly.

If you make the pie ahead of time, you can pop the pie in the oven after the rest of Thanksgiving dinner is done cooking and heat it up with the residual warmth in the oven. Or you can just serve it room temperature. I have heard it is good with vanilla ice cream too.

Pie Crust

Here is what you need to make a simple, but yummy pie crust!

Yield: 2 9 inch pie crusts

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, chilled and diced
1/2 cup ice water

Mix flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter until the mixture resembles
coarse crumbs. Stir in ice water slowly until mixture forms a ball of dough. Wrap ball in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight. Take the dough out of the fridge and unwrap. Put flour on the surface and rolling pin and roll dough out. Cut in half to form 2 pie crusts. Re-roll each portion and press into pie pan or use as top crust for fruit pie (or both - you have 2).

Who knew making a pie crust could be so easy? Make sure you make it in enough time to allow it to set in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

Chocolate Pecan Pie

Here is a variation on Pecan Pie. It is just as easy to make as pecan pie. I actually made my pecan pie, then put it in the oven and proceded to begin making this pie. By the time I got it all mixed and ready to go, it was perfect timing to throw it in the oven along with the regular pecan pie (they cook at the same temperature, but for different times).

1 unbaked pie crust
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup speed 6 1 min
scrape bowl
speed 4
3 squares melted unsweetened chocolate
beat 1 min
speed stir
2 cups pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine eggs, sugar and corn syrup and mix on high speed for one minute. Scrape the side of the bowl. Add melted chocolate and beat on medium speed for one minute. Stir in pecan halves. Pour mixture in unbaked pie crust and bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes until soft in the center.

Pecan Pie

I'm not a fan of pie in general (except the pizza and chocolate varieties), but somehow, I got roped into making pies for Thanksgiving this year. Well, I actually know how it happened. I wanted to make a pumpkin pie for my husband and had my mom show me how to process a pumpkin so that I had the meat of the pumpkin to use for the pie. It was a few weeks before Thanksgiving when she helped me, so she assigned me desserts. I was going to just stick with pumpkin pie and something I could stand, but then the requests came: Apple and Pecan. Well, anyway, here is the super easy recipe I used for Pecan pie.

1 unbaked pie crust (you can use store bought or make your own)
3 eggs
1 cup dark corn syrup (the dark Karo syrup has a measuring line on the bottle now. Super convenient and easy to measure this sticky stuff!)
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup pecan halves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together eggs, corn syrup, white sugar, butter and vanilla. Dump the pecans in the bottom of the pie crust. Pour the mixture in (the pecans actually rise to the top of the gunk - it is pretty neat). Bake for an hour or until a knife inserted 1 inch from the edge comes out clean. Voila! Pecan pie.

For CHOCOLATE Pecan Pie, click here.