Whole Wheat Banana Nut Bread

 Do you make a grocery list before you go shopping?  I always do.  But I got home from a week-long trip not long ago, and although I had left enough meals for my hubs for the time I was gone, of course there was no food left at the end of the week.  So we had to make a late-night grocery store run without a list. Ack!  When my husband goes shopping, he goes around the store, finds what he likes, and then buys a TON.  For example, 5 pounds of peanuts.  (?!)  And so many bananas that we couldn't possibly eat them all before half of them went bad.  You don't even want to know how much we (he) spent grocery shopping that night, yet, the next day I realized we had nothing for dinner!  Unless we wanted to eat several pounds of oatmeal, peanuts, or bananas. So of course I had to go grocery shopping again, this time with a list after I'd planned out our dinners.  Oh well.  

So anyways, you know what to do when you see a bunch of bad bananas on your counter, right?

That's right, make banana bread!  With nuts, of course. Because banana bread without nuts is lacking a lot of goodness.

I tried out TWO recipes (because we had a LOT of bad bananas...).  I added one cup of chopped walnuts to both.

The first one is from Carrie Vitt's blog, Deliciously Organic.  I just love her site.  Her photographs are amazing and her recipes are, too.  Plus, all her recipes use unprocessed ingredients.

Her banana bread recipes uses:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons coconut oil

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (I used regular wheat flour)

1 cup whole cane sugar or sucanat

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla exract

(Bake at 3:50 for 50-55 min.)

The second recipe is from 100 Days of Real Food.  I just found this blog recently; it's about  a family who made a pledge to eat only real food for 100 days, and it worked out so well that they have continued eating that way.

Their recipe calls for:

2 1/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup honey

2 eggs

1/3 cup oil

1 teapsoon vanilla

(Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes).

You can see that both recipes are very similar.  The main difference is that the first recipe uses 1 cup of sugar, while the second uses only 1/4 cup honey. 

The first recipe (with sugar) is on the left; the second (with honey) is on the right.

My husband and I taste-tested both loaves.  It did take a few bites and some thinking to figure out which one we liked better!

The second recipe, which uses just 1/4 cup of honey, relies on the sweetness of the banana.  It wasn't bad at all, in fact, it was quite acceptable and we definitely will enjoy eating it.  The first recipe, though, is more like a dessert bread, the kind you have to stop yourself from gobbling up!  The second recipe is more like just bread, not very sweet but definitely a yummy snack.

 

So if you are trying to make something that is more like a treat, I would use the first recipe.  If you are trying to cut down on sugar, I would use the second.

Here's what happens if you make both loaves and leave them out:

 Enjoy!!

Pumpkin Pecan Cinnamon Rolls

 

Happy Thanksgiving!  I made these last night so we could have them this morning for breakfast.  They are absolutely delicious, and except for having all wheat flour, they are not healthy at all.  It's not much fun to try to eat healthy most of the time unless you can be unhealthy once in a while.

I found them at Good Life Eats.  I had thought of making pumpkin cinnamon rolls and couldn't find a good recipe on AllRecipes.com, so I googled it and found this site by Katie Goodman.  I'll have to try more of her recipes in the future.

Anyways, for the cinnamon rolls, I didn't make the frosting to go on top but they are really good without it.  Except for using all whole wheat flour and changing up the spices a bit, I didn't make any changes to the recipe.  Oh, and I also added chopped pecans to the filling.  I have tried to make cinnamon rolls before using all whole wheat flour and they turned out kind of dense & hard.  But these came out so soft and delicious...I think maybe adding pumpkin to the batter kept them softer than otherwise?  The pumpkin flavor isn't very strong but it's just enough to make these good for Fall.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup warm water

1 package active dry yeast

1/3 cup warm milk

1 large egg, beaten

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1 tablespoon melted butter

3 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Filling:

1 stick butter

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Chopped pecans (I didn't measure them out, oops, I guess it was about 1/2- 3/4 cup.)

Directions:

1 - In a large bowl, sprinkle yeast on top of warm water and let sit for about 5 minutes.  Stir yeast into water.

2 - Add milk, eggs, pumpkin, butter, 1 1/4 cups flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon & pumpkin pie spice.  Beat for 2 minutes.

3 - Gradually add remaining flour, a little at a time, until you have a dough stiff enough to knead.  (Actually since I was using all wheat flour, I ended up using less flour...probably more like 2 3/4 cups.)

4 - Turn dough out onto a floured surface.  Knead, adding flour until you have a smooth, elastic dough. (I just kneaded it right in the bowl.)

5 - Put dough into an oiled bowl (I just kept it in the same bowl).  Turn once to coat entire ball of dough with oil.  Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

6 -  Combine the white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, & pumpkin pie spice in a small bowl.

7 - Transfer the risen dough to a lightly greased work surface, and roll it into a 16" x 12" rectangle.  Spread softened butter over the dough and then sprinkle with the sugar mixture.

8 - Roll the dough into a log the long way; it'll stretch to about 20" long as you roll.  

9 -Slice it into about 15 slices and place them in a greased 9" x 13" baking pan.  Cover with a towel and let rise until almost doubled, about 45 minutes.

10 - Bake in a preheated 375 degree over until they're brown around the edges and beginning to turn brown across the center, about 20-30 minutes.

The author of Good Life Eats, Katie, included a note for if you make them the night before which was helpful because that's what I had wanted to do.  You can put them in the fridge after you have placed them in the dish.  They'll still need to rise the next morning before baking.

Pumpkin Pecan Muffins

These are really good - my husband and I made them for breakfast one day and then ate all 12 that day.


Ingredients and directions:

-3/4 cup sucanat
-1/4 cup olive oil
-2 eggs
-1 cup canned pumpkin
-1/4 cup water
-1/2 cup oat flour
-1 cup wheat flour
-3/4 teaspoon baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
-1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
-1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
-1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix wet ingredients.  Mix dry ingredients and then add to wet mixture.  Add pecans last.
Fill 12 muffin cups.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Original recipe:  Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins from allrecipes.com

Whole Wheat Bread

Why I made homemade bread:

-Store bought bread has preservatives.  Google "dangers of preservatives" and you will find lots of information on why you want to avoid them.  Here is one quote, "Preservatives are toxic and tumor-causing. Most impact the nervous system, changing behavior. Some have an impact on reproductive health or weaken the immune system."

-Store bought bread has sodium.  I don't mind it so much but my husband has hereditary high blood pressure and will not eat any store bought bread because of the salt content.

-Many store bought breads have high fructose corn syrup (although it is possible to find some without it if you look hard enough).


-Usually I cannot find any organic bread in stores, but with homemade bread, I can use organic ingredients.

Thus, my attempts at homemade bread.  I even went out and bought some 9x5 glass loaf pans.

Making it really isn't that hard but it just takes a lot of time because I don't have a bread machine.

Here is the recipe I tried today:  Simple Whole Wheat Bread

The recipe does call for both bread flour and whole wheat flour.  I went ahead and bought bread flour, because it said "Unbleached."  I thought that meant it would still be whole wheat...but when I opened the package it was pure white refined flour.  I don't want to waste that bag of flour so I went ahead and followed the recipe but I think next time, I will attempt it using only whole wheat flour.  Oh, also, I left out the salt. 

The nice thing about this recipe is that it makes THREE loaves.  So I can keep one loaf out and pop the other two in the freezer until needed.



Let the dough rise...

Then, punch it down.

Next you divide it into three loaves and let those rise.  Then you put them in the oven: