Fast and Easy Gluten-Free Blender Muffins

We needed a quick breakfast this morning before 8 a.m. church. I found a recipe that looked easy last night and thought I'd give it a try. However, it does not take 20 minutes like it says, or else I got started later than I thought. They did finish cooking before church and I pulled them out of the oven as we walked out the door. :-( No one got one because they were too hot to eat. So we had them for lunch- Maybe that's why they were SOOO good. We had all missed breakfast.

2 ripe bananas - we used frozen ones I thawed in the microwave for 30-60 seconds
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
2 Tablespoons honey
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon - I like cinnamon, so I used a heaping one.
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups old fashioned oats

Toppings: chocolate chips - the only one the kids really wanted, shredded coconut, blueberries, raspberries, or nuts (no one wants nuts!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray muffin pan with cooking spray Mix everything but the toppings in blender. Put the liquids (yogurt, applesauce, egg, etc) in blender first. Don't make the mistake I did of putting the oats in first - It doesn't blend well and you have to stir it around. Blend until well mixed. Fill greased muffin tins 3/4 full. top with desired topping. Bake for 15 min, until toothpick comes out clean. Makes 12 muffins - around 105 calories each without toppings.

Four Cheese Pesto Chicken Pizza

We decided to make pizza with our pesto. Yummy!  And I must write it down so I don't forget it. Genna and Adria ate 3 or more pieces and that's saying a lot! 

 

Cracker pizza crust - prepared according to directions to make 2 pizzas.

1 cup pesto

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

3 oz feta cheese - crumbled

4 oz fresh mozzarella, broken into pieces ( we used the sliced fresh mozzarella from Costco)

sun dried tomatoes (we used 6)

artichoke heart sections (we used about 16-18 small ones)

After cooking the crusts, spread half the pesto onto each one. A spatula works great for this. 

Top with the cheeses, artichoke heart sections cut in half and the sun dried tomatoes cut into small pieces.

Finish baking according to crust directions. We cut our pizzas into 12 slices and each slice is about 185 calories. 

Pesto

We have basil that needs to be used, so I made pesto - first time ever. Usually it's too garlicy and oily, but I found a recipe that I modified and I think we will either have it on pizza or pasta tonight. Ryan said it is good!

2 cups basil, leaves and smaller stems - take out the larger hard ones.
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup olive oil

In a food processor pulse basil, garlic, and Parmesan cheese until smooth. Scrap down the sides of the bowl and make sure everything is uniformly smooth. Slowly add the olive oil while food processor is running, stop once to scrap down the sides.

Bagels and Banana Bars with Brown Butter Frosting

We had a great time spending a week in Missoula! Kellie introduced me to a couple of new and delicious recipes! Neither of them are originals, but I am posting them here so I don't loose them. The night before we left, we made bagels for dinner and banana brownies the brown butter frosting for dessert. We added in a trip to the Big Dipper for ice cream too. We had so much good food on our trip- Chicken Osaka from Noodles Express and lunch at 5 on Black. Wish we had those restaurants here! I gained 4 pounds! Now its back to counting calories for me!

Homemade Bagels

This recipe is from Laura in the Kitchen.

Changes we made:
We doubled it, and then split the dough in half to make two flavors. We made 10 bagels out of each recipe instead of 8.

In half the dough, we added about 1/2 cup sharp white cheddar and 1/2 cup chopped roasted green chilies that Kellie had from New Mexico that she had frozen. We had to add extra flour to these because the chilies had a lot of moisture in them. Then we put more chilies in the middle of some of the bagels before we cooked them and then covered them with more cheese half way through the baking time. They were good - but the ones with extra chilies on them were a little spicy for the kids.

In the other half, we did plain ones topped with a mix a kosher salt, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds.

We wanted to try cinnamon raisin too - Next time!

Ingredients:
Skimpy 1 Tbsp Yeast
1-1/2 cups of Warm Water
2 Tbsp of Granulated Sugar plus 1 teaspoon
3-1/2 cups of Bread Flour - Yes you need bread flour  - Kellie uses it for everything!
2 tsp of Salt

For the water bath:
12 cups of Water
1/3 cup of Honey

1 Eggwhite beaten with a splash of water to make an egg wash

Process,

Mix together the warm water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and yeast, set aside for a few minutes to allow the yeast to activate. Add the flour, salt, and remaining sugar to yeast and water mixture. Add extra flour to make a soft, slightly tacky dough.Mix in mixer with a dough hook for about 8 minutes on medium-low speed until your dough is smooth. Place the dough in an oiled bowl and (flip it over to coat the whole thing with a bit of the oil) cover and allow it to rest for about an hour and a half.

Once the dough has risen (won’t be doubled in size but will be pretty risen by then).  Deflate dough gently and then divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. (We did 10.)

Form each piece into a ball by rolling it between the palm of your hand and your work surface. Try not to leave any cracks or joins in the dough - we had a hard time with this! Using one finger poke a hole (go all the way through) in the center of each ball and using both pointer fingers, poke them through the center hole and rotate your fingers to about a 2” hole (check out video for better and more clear instructions on this).

Place the bagels on a parchment paper lined baking sheet cover with a damp, lint free towel (we just sprayed ours with cooking spray- no covering with a towel) and allow to rest for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425 degrees and place one of your oven racks on the top 2/3 of the oven. We put ours too high for our first batch. In a large, wide pot (I used my dutch oven for this) add your water and honey and bring to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to simmer, add 4 bagels at a time and cook them for 1 minute on each side and then transfer them on the same baking sheet (make sure you flip them back to top-side-up) repeat with all the bagels.

7) Brush the tops and sides of each one with the beaten egg white wash and bake them for about 20 minutes or until deeply golden brown all around (rotate your pan halfway through).

8) Allow them to cool for a few minutes on your baking sheet before moving them to a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.

Banana Bars with Brown Butter Frosting

I have heard about how delicious brown butter is, but I have never tried it until now. YUM! Who knew cooking butter would make such a difference in the flavor. These were so good. I had one for breakfast the day we left and Kellie sent a plate of them home. We put them in the freezer when we got home. Ryan likes them better frozen. The recipe we used comes from The Girl Who Ate Everything, but Kellie says it's posted all over the internet on different blogs. Genna helped us make these too.

Banana Bread Bars:
1 ½ cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
½ cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 ¾ cups (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed ( Kellie just used 4 frozen ones and squeezes them out of the peel into the mixer)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional) -  we skipped them

Browned Butter Frosting: ( I don't think Kellie measures this - just eye balled it!)
½ cup butter
3¾ cups powdered sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
about 3 tablespoons milk or half and half

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour 10x15 jelly roll pan or line with parchment paper (for thicker bars use a 9x13 pan and bake for 10 minutes longer than directed). Beat first four ingredients until creamy. Blend in bananas and vanilla for one minute. Add dry ingredients and blend for one minute. Stir in nuts and spread in pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Cool slighty until warm but not hot and frost with Browned Butter Frosting.

For the Browned Butter Frosting: Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat past the melting point until it is boiling and a delicate brown. Remove from the heat and immediately add the remaining ingredients. This should be thicker than a glaze and thinner than frosting. You can add milk to get it to the correct consistency. Using a spatula smooth over the top of the Monkey Squares immediately. The frosting will be easier to spread once it's on the warm bread.

Stromboli -OR- Filled Bread

A couple of weeks ago, we had cousin Ty spend the week with us. When he's been to our house before, he has complained about the amount of fruits and veggies we eat (more than he would like). So I was worried about what kind of food we could feed him. I had some frozen bread dough in the freezer, so I made Stromboli - They turned out great. These recipes are from www.rhodesbread.com, but I'm re-posting them with the changes I made to them.

Braided Athenian Bread

1 Loaf frozen bead, thawed to room temperature
1 Tbsp fresh minced garlic - THIS IS WAY TOO MUCH! I did 3 cloves, but should have done 1!
6 ounce can whole black olives, halved
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons pimentos (original recipe is capers but I didn't have any)
1/3 to 1/2 cup green olives cut in half (mine were stuffed with capers)
1/4 cup sliced sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
poppy seeds

Roll loaf into a 10x16-inch rectangle. Let rest 10-15 minutes.

In a bowl, combine garlic, olives, parsley, pimentos, tomatoes, yogurt and pepper.

Spread filling lengthwise in a 4-inch strip down center of dough. Sprinkle filling with Parmesan cheese.
Make cuts 1 1/2-inches apart on long sides of dough to within 1/2-inch of filling. Begin braid by folding top and bottom strips toward filling. Then braid strips left over right, right over left. Finish by pulling last strip over and tucking under braid.

Lift braid with both hands and place on a large, sprayed baking sheet. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Cover with sprayed plastic wrap and let rise 30 minutes.

Remove wrap and bake at 350°F 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool slightly and slice to serve.


This is the Athenian bread and the BBQ chicken before they were baked:

BBQ Chicken Stromboli

1 Loaf frozen bead, thawed to room temperature
2 cups cooked, shredded chicken ( I just used a can of chicken)
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup chopped red onion (I used a regular onion)
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (didn't have any so I skipped it)
1/2 cup BBQ sauce

Roll bread dough into a 10x13-inch rectangle. Combine chicken, cheese, onion, cilantro and paprika and mix well. Brush dough evenly with BBQ sauce to within 1/2 inch of edge. Spread chicken mixture evenly over BBQ sauce.

Starting with a long side, roll up jelly roll style. Pinch seam to seal. Place, seam side down, on a sprayed baking sheet. Turn ends under slightly. We brushed ours with egg and sprinkled with dried onion. Bake at 350°F 30-35 minutes. This one did take longer to cook than the other 2 did. I think I cooked it an extra 5 to 10 mins more to make sure the bread dough rolled in the center was cooked.



Deli Stromboli

This one was the kids favorite! I didn't even get a chance for a picture of the cooked one. They were a little flatter than I would have liked before I cooked them, but they tasted great!


1 loaf frozen bread dough, thawed to room temperature
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2-3 tablespoons dijon mustard
6 slices deli ham
6 slices deli turkey
4 slices provolone cheese (didn't have it so I used some colby jack)
1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

 Roll dough into a 12x15-inch rectangle. The original recipe has you saute until tender 1/4 c red onion, 1/4 c chopped green or red pepper and 1/4 c mushrooms in 2 Tbsp olive oil while the dough rests. But I didn't do that. I just used fresh green onion instead.

Spread the dough with mustard, avoiding 1-inch around all edges. Layer middle third of dough, vertically, with ham, turkey and provolone cheese. Top with vegetables and mozzarella cheese. Fold one third of dough over fillings. Repeat with remaining side.

Place seam side down on a large sprayed baking sheet. Tuck ends under and cut some vents in the top using a sharp knife. Brush with egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Let rise 30 minutes. Remove wrap and bake at 350°F 25-30 minutes.