Banana Bread

Grandma's banana bread: one of the most comforting things in the world. Nuff said.


Ingredients:
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar 
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. 

With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. 

Pour mixture into a 4x8 inch loaf pan that has been coated in cooking spray. Bake for 1 hour. 

Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Soft Pretzels

Oh, Martha. You've done it. You have created a recipe for hot buttery pretzels that I adore.
I think I gained ten pounds.
I am a sucker for soft pretzels. Every time I go to the mall I always go by the pretzel place and get one. Or if I'm at the movies and they aren't outrageously expensive. I get one. See the pattern? Well, considering I had all the necessary ingredients, these bad boys were easy and cheap to make. So easy to make that I might sneak one into the movies next time I go... (Shhh! Don't tell anyone!)

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons regular instant yeast
1 cup of warm water
Pretzel salt, or regular salt if you don't have any
3 tablespoons butter, melted
Cooking spray

Directions:

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. Once thoroughly combined, add enough water to make all the dry ingredients moist. It should look like this. 

Once you have everything incorporated, lightly flour a clean work surface and  your hands (dough will be sticky) and knead the dough for about five minutes. 

After kneading, your dough should look like this. Don't worry if you have to re-flour your surface, it's normal. Make the dough into a ball and lightly coat with flour.

In a medium size zipper bag, place the dough. Make sure it has enough room to expand. Let it sit for about 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes or so your dough should double (or close to it) in size. The easiest way to get the dough out of the bag is to rip apart the sides.

With cooking spray, prepare work surface. I used a large cutting board instead of my counter. In a regular sized bowl pour warm water (tap water microwaved for 30 seconds).  Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray it with cooking spray. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

Divide your dough into eight parts. I never get mine equal and that  is perfectly fine. 

Once divided, roll dough portions to rope about two feet long.

Form your dough ropes into the pretzel shape.

Once your dough is formed to a pretzel, dunk it in your warm water just long enough to get it thoroughly wet.

Place wet pretzels onto prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt (or cinnamon sugar!) and let sit for 10 minutes before baking.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Once they are out of the oven, brush butter over the warm pretzels. Continue brushing on butter till it is all gone.  At this point you can add more salt or toppings if you wish! (I added more salt!)
If you are wanting to bake cheese onto your pretzels add it onto the pretzels when they have about two more minutes of baking.

Creamy Pigs in a Blanket

They sound strange now, but after eating them you will change your mind!


The idea for these pigs in a blanket plus cream cheese came from the hot dog stand that is on "The Strip" in Stillwater. "The Strip" is Washington Street in good ol' Stillwater right next to campus where all of the bars are. The couple that owns the hot dog stand knows what drunk people like: hot dogs. These people for real put cream cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, chili, relish, and I'm pretty sure there is a hot dog somewhere on that bun too. It's amazing. 


Movie night comes around and the fiancé and the roommate want hot dogs. Naturally I don't  have buns, but I do have a can of crescent roll dough and hot dogs along with cream cheese and some string cheese. Just go with me on this one. 15 minutes later we are chowing down on a remake of a Stillwater staple. Creamy pigs in a blanket.




Ingredients:
4 hot dogs, cut in half
1 can of crescent roll dough (makes 8 crescent rolls)
Cream cheese (or string cheese)


Directions:

Place rolled out dough onto a baking sheet and put the halved hot dogs at the wide end of the dough. Cream cheese is placed in the middle.

Roll the dough starting from the wide hot dog end and making sure the dough covers most of the hot dog and cream cheese.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or what the crescent roll packaging instructions are.

And ta-dah! You have made yourself some delicious snacks :)

The cream cheese will not be really melty so no worries about runny cream cheese! (The string cheese does not melt very much either!) Enjoy! 

Snickerdoodles

The classic snickerdoodle. 


I had never made these before because I generally steer clear of anything that resembles a sugar cookie. Don't ask me why because I can't give you a logical answer. Sigh. These were made at the request of the fiancé. I'm such a sucker. These cookies were also eaten relatively quick once I took them over to his place. It's like they inhale bake goods over there (which makes him and his roommate the perfect test subjects). 


In the depths of my mother's recipe box I found this recipe. I'm pretty sure no one had ever used that recipe card. Maybe a dislike of making cookies that resemble sugar cookies runs in the family :)


Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1 ½  cup sugar

2 eggs

½ teaspoon vanilla

2 ¾  cup flour

2 teaspoons cream of tarter

1 teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup cinnamon sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla extract.
3. In a separate bowl, sift flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt together. 
4. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet.
5. Form dough balls about the size of walnuts and roll them in cinnamon sugar. Dough will probably be a little sticky, a spoon is very helpful with rolling the dough around.  Place on an ungreased cookie sheet or parchment paper.
6. Bake for 10 minutes. More or less time depending on if you like your cookies crisp or soft.  
7. Let cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet then transfer to wire cooling rack. 

Chocolate Cake Cookies

These are perhaps the easiest cookies to make.
They are also some of my favorite cookies, and my roommate's favorite, my fiance's favorite, and his roommate's and all of his friends' favorite. I was astounded at how fast they ate them. Like, I set the container down and opened it and maybe five minutes later they were completely demolished.
It makes me feel good inside when my cookies get eaten that fast :)
I have no idea where this recipe came from other than I called my mom asking how to make them. And off the top of her head she rattled off the four ingredients. Yeah, FOUR.

Ingredients:
1 box of chocolate cake mix (I used Betty Crocker's milk chocolate)
1/2 cup oil (see note)
2 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips (any kind)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, pour in cake mix. Add in the oil and eggs and mix until there is no dry cake mix left. Then add chocolate chips.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (for super easy clean up) or use a non-stick baking sheet or pan.
If you like your cookies bigger, place heaping spoonfuls of dough on to the baking sheet 2 inches apart. For smaller cookies, spoon out dough that is 2ish inches in diameter and place an inch apart.
Bake for 8-10 minutes.
Once firm around the edges, let cool for 5 minutes until moving them to a wire cooling rack.

NOTE: Vegetable oil is always the safest route to go. However, peanut oil is a good sub too. Olive oil will make your cookies a bit richer that vegetable oil will BUT you can taste the oil when they are still warm This is what I used the first time and the next day when I brought them over to my fiance's apartment the olive oily taste was gone.

Yields 18-20 large cookies and 30-36 small cookies

The Gary England Drinking Game

For all you Okies out there, this one is for you. Smack in the center of tornado alley.So far today, I have avoided all TVs waiting to do this with my roommates and I have missed several tornadoes and mesocyclones. Dang.This version of the game is from OKStorms and I quite enjoy it :)Please drink responsibly!!

Gary England Drinking Game

Pregame

1. Everyone selects a storm chaser other than Val Castor. Every time Gary talks to your storm chaser, you take one drink. Take two drinks every time we see footage from your storm chaser. Take four drinks if your storm chaser says "tornado on the ground."

2. Everyone selects a county other than Pottawatomie County. Every time Gary mentions your county, you take one drink. Take two drinks every time we see footage from your county. Take four drinks if a tornado touches down in your county.

One drink

1. Take one drink every time Gary says the following:

"Hook echo" | "Updraft" | "Metro" | "Doppler radar" | "Wall cloud" | "Ranger 9" | "Underground" | "Mobile home"

2. When Gary gives a list of counties, take one drink for every county in the list.

3. Take one drink every time Gary interrupts a program. Take one drink if Gary says "You're not missing any of [program name]." Take one drink when Gary says "We'll keep you advised."

Two drinks

1. Take two drinks every time Gary says the following:

"Baseball-sized hail" | "Waterloo Road" | "Pottawatomie County" | "Deer Creek High School"

2. Take two drinks every time Gary mentions the following towns:

·         Altus

·         Burns Flat

·         Dill City

·         Gotebo

·         Hydro

·         Lookeba

·         Meeker

·         Mulhall

·         Oktaha

·         Olustee

·         Shattuck

·         Slaughterville

·         Tryon

·         Vici

·         Waukomis

·         Wayne (or Payne)

·         Weleetka

·         Wetumkah

3. Take two drinks every time Gary talks to Val Castor.

Three drinks

1. Take three drinks if we see footage from Val Castor.

2. Take three drinks if we see footage from Pottawatomie County.

3. Take three drinks if Gary mentions the following:

·         "Immediate tornado precautions"

·         "National Weather Service"

·         "Mesocyclone"

·         "Portable Radio"

·         "Take shelter"

·         "Tornado warning in effect until ..."

Four drinks

1. Take four drinks if Ranger 9 must land to refuel.

2. Take four drinks if Gary issues his own tornado warning, not recognized by the NWS or says the following:

"Will someone please answer that phone?" | "Do you see power flashes?"

3. Take four drinks if a shirt-less tornado victim is interviewed.

Finish your drink

1. Finish your drink if someone uses the word tornado as a verb or if Gary mentions the nearest cross streets to you.

2. If Gary says "We've lost Val," pour a little out for your homies and finish your drink.

Peanut Butter Cookies

I couldn't come up with a better name for these suckers because they are just so dang good. And simple. While I am no Betty Crocker, these cookies are better than the ones from the mix bags from the store. I had all the ingredients in my pantry too which makes them even better... and cheaper.

Ingredients

· 2 cups peanut butter, creamy or crunchy (or both!)

· 2 cups white sugar

· 2 eggs

  2 teaspoons baking soda

· 1 pinch salt

· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the cookie sheets or use parchment paper.

2.    In a large bowl, stir peanut butter and sugar together until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the baking soda, salt, and vanilla. 

3. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place them 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets. 

   4. Using the back of a fork, make a criss-cross pattern on the dough making sure not to press them flat.

    5.    Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

    MMM... just blogging about them makes me want to eat one. After they completely cool they will be hard enough to put in a storage container or load onto a tray. People (especially roommates:)) will love them! (if you're willing to share...)

UPDATE

I went home one weekend and my mom made these cookies but used a MEAT TENDERIZER to make the criss-cross print on the cookie. Say what?! It was pretty cool.

Yogurt Drops

Yogurt. You think you can only eat it one way... think again! I saw on pinterest (of course) several different people freezing yogurt drop-things. So I decided to try it and man they are tasty! I mean, they taste like yogurt but somehow freezing yogurt makes it better. These make the perfect snack!

For this you'll need:
Yogurt, whatever flavor, whatever brand.
A plastic zipper bag
A cup to hold said bag (not super important but much easier than holding it yourself and spooning in yogurt at the same time.)
A spoon
Scissors
A METAL pan/cookie sheet. (I tried glass and the drops were incredibly hard to get off)
And most importantly, a freezer.

Directions:

Place you bag inside your cup and make sure the edges of the bag go over the mouth of the cup.

Spoon your yogurt of choice into the bag.

Once you have the amount you want (I did about five heaping spoonfuls), remove the bag from the cup and gently press out the air and seal the bag. If your bag does not have a zipper, make sure and hold it securely at the top.

With scissor snip off a small bit of one of the bottom corners.

Squeeze (gently at first) the yogurt out on to your cookie sheet in quarter size drops (or bigger or smaller).

Once you have used up your yogurt in the bag, place in your freezer at a relatively level position and freeze for about an hour. Depending on the humidity it might take longer.

Some drops are easier to get off then others. Try using a fork or a butter knife, but only if you have to.

The most fantastic thing about these yogurt drops are that they are way cheaper than buying a package of them in the store and you aren't limited to one or two flavors. The downside is that you have to keep them relatively cold or they become sticky and melt. But if you eat them fast they won't! :)

But what's this??

Yeah, I did it. I put fruit in my yogurt drops. What are you going to do about it?

For these I took frozen fruits and coated them in yogurt (just in the original container. If you lose one it'll just be a surprise for later). Again, I placed them on the same metal baking sheet and froze for about an hour.

These are so addicting and not to mention healthy!

Maple Cookies

Happy day! I made a cookie that tastes like a pancake! Considering I could eat pancakes for every meal, this is a revelation. Not only do they taste good but they make my apartment smell AWESOME. So awesome that my picky-eater roommate came out of her room to try them (and she liked them!).
They tastes like breakfast yes, but I don't recommend eating them for breakfast. They are a little too sweet for that.  Serious Eats is the website from which these cookies from the heavens came from. The picture that they have posted is far prettier than mine turned out and I'm okay with that.

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature (pull it out of the refrigerator and stick it in the microwave for 8ish seconds and its room temp)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup maple syrup

Directions:
In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.
In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar together until fluffy (about 4 minutes)
Beat in the vanilla and egg until combined.
Add in the maple syrup and beat until combined.
In halves, add in the dry ingredients. Stir until just incorporated.
Cover bowl and refrigerate for an hour or until you're ready to bake, just not more than a day or two.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet (or 2) with parchment paper (it will save a lot of time with clean up and your cookies will come off easier but it isn't necessary.)
Drop dough by the tablespoon full on the baking sheet making sure to leave about two inches of room on either side.
Bake until golden brown along the edges, about 10 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet for another 10 minutes until moving to a cooling rack... or your mouth.

attempt one...

I'm a total goof and added baking powder instead of baking soda. They still taste delcious! but they aren't the right consistancy. I'll update later with a picture of the cookies with the right ingredients!

So much better!!!!

Personal Baked Oatmeal

I definitely did NOT like oatmeal until I had some about um... two days ago. Now, I'm obsessed. Not really. But I do enjoy it for breakfast. However, I'm always running late and if I'm not something is wrong. I need something with fewer calories than poptarts and just as tasty as the protein bars I usually eat as I'm running out the door.

About a week ago I found a blog called Sugar Free Mom and all of her recipes are way healthier than the traditional way. So these individual baked oatmeals are an adaption to her recipe.

Ingredients:
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups of apple sauce
5 cups of rolled oats
2 3/4 cup of soy milk (you can use whatever milk you like)
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
3/4 cup honey
Assortment of toppings (i.e. strawberries, blueberries, raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, etc. Fruit can be either fresh or frozen.)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Mix eggs, vanilla, applesauce, and honey together in a large bowl.
Add in oats, salt, baking powder, flax, and cinnamon and mix well with wet mixture
Pour in milk and combine. It will look runny and that's okay!
Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. (I would recommend this over using cooking spray!)
Pour mixture into tin almost all the way up to the top of the liner.
Add toppings. Press them gently into the oat mix.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed cleanly.

And taduh! You have delicious breakfast (or snacks)! Let them cool and serve or you can put them in an air tight container or zipper bag and refrigerate or freeze. To reheat, microwave for 30-60 seconds depending on the microwave.

The first batch that I made I used cooking spray (which is what the photo is of) and if you don't get every inch of that tin they are going to come out in pieces!

The Purpose of Pinterest

The purpose of Pinterest is bookmark web pages so that you can later refer back to them. Most women have gone crazy "pinning" things like adorable puppies, elaborate cakes, and hard to sew aprons. A great number of them will never attempt to make the items and ideas that they "pin". That's where I'm changing it up. I promise to bake, cook, and craft every craftable thing on my account. Yes, its a lot to do but I will have increased my level of crafty and hopefully increased the quality of my cooking (no promises on that) and end up with a bunch of really cute stuff :). For all of those complicated crafts and recipes I will show you step by step how I did them and add modifications.
This should be fun!