Banana Bread- Scratch that- Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

Once again, I found myself looking for a recipe online. Sometimes there are so many that look worth trying that I wonder, "Which one should I try?" Well, a couple years ago, I chose this one for Banana Bread.... and I haven't tried to find another one. I have made it many times, and every time, it has turned out right- no, not just right, it's turned out grand. I have even put the batter into two mini loaf pans rather than one big one, and that has also turned out great. The following is the link to the website I found it on:




http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_bread/




The only way I have tweaked the recipe is by adding chocolate chips to it. I love chocolate, as do the people I cook for- my sisters. One of my sisters won't even touch Banana Bread that doesn't have chocolate chips in it. I must admit, I also prefer it with chocolate. I have never measured how much I put in, but I'd venture to guess 1/2 a cup.




Ingredients:

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed (I usually use 4)


• 1/3 cup melted butter


• 1 cup sugar (recipe says this can easily be reduced to 3/4 cup, which I have never done)


• 1 egg beaten


• 1 teaspoon vanilla


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• Pinch of salt


• 1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350. Mix butter into already 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, mix in. At this point you would pour in the chocolate chips, if you want them in the bread. Pour mixture into greased 4x8 in. loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour, if an inserted toothpick comes out clean, it is done. Cool on a rack. Removie from pan slice to serve.



TIP: No toothpicks on hand? Use part of an uncooked spaghetti noodle

Flavored Rice

So, I made a very healthy dinner tonight... Salmon, rice and green beans. Those three things are all rather bland items so each of them needs some spicing up. The salmon I doused in lemon juice as usual, the green beans I buttered up and sprinkled with lemon pepper, the rice... well, the rice I was drawing a big fat blank on. How in the world does one spice up or season rice??? With this thought in mind, I googled "flavorful rice". I found several plausible options if I were a bean fan... so I kept sifting through the links and found this one, which was actually one of the first choices.
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/flavorful-rice/Detail.aspx I tweaked this recipe quite a bit. The first thing I noticed was that I most definitely did not need 3 cups of rice, and I don't have a rice cooker, and I did NOT want the tomatoes in it, AND I only had minute rice on hand when the recipe calls for regular rice. So I decided to change the recipe a little bit, which I have switched recipes before but not a lot so I'm always a little nervous when I'm doing it.

But I went ahead with it and this is what I did:

According to the rice box directions for 1 cup of rice I needed 1 cup of water. So I put 3/4 cup of water in a pot, and then added 1 TBSP of olive oil and 1 TBSP of vinegar. Then I sprinkled oregano, salt, and pepper (I didn't have basil on hand) into the water solution which I then set to boil. After it started boiling, I poured in the cup rice, stirred it, covered it, removed it from heat, let it sit for 5 minutes (per box directions). After the 5 minutes, I checked the rice, it seemed a little too moist, and since the rest of dinner was not yet ready, I let it sit longer. By the time we were ready to eat, the rice was ready too. It was yummy and I would make it again. Have fun.