Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I got this recipe from my wonderful and talented cousin's blog Eating True. Go HERE for the recipe.

Here are the final results! Nom nom nom! It was delicious! My husband prefers his banana bread sweet but without chocolate, so I may try it without chocolate chips, and adding 1/2 cup white sugar. I am pretty sure the chocolate was my favorite part though. :)

Fall

Fall is one of my most favorite times of the year! Here in Southern California, we get our own special variation of fall where flip-flops are still widely acceptable!

One of the best parts of fall is pumpkin flavored anything. I am talking about pumpkin spice lattes (or iced), pumpkin cookies and muffins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes. Pumpkin galore! I almost forgot pumpkin ice cream from Trader Joe's! Mmmmmm!

Pumpkin Cookies

Now, I am not sure where I found this recipe, but it is amazing. I was a huge fan of Starbucks pumpkin bread, and I think this is even better. The cookies have a cake like consistency and are pretty much AMAZING!

Iced Pumpkin Cookies
Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

(can subsititute 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice and 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon instead of other spices)
Icing Ingredients

• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoon milk
• 1/2 tablespoon melted better
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt; set aside.
2. In medium bowl, cream together 1/2 cup of butter and sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, vanilla to butter mixture until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls, flatten slightly.
3. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in oven. Cool cookies then drizzle glaze with fork.
4. To make glaze combine confectioners sugar, milk, butter, and vanilla. Add milk as needed to achieve drizzling consistency. 

If you make these, you will not regret it! They are even good without the icing.
Happy Baking, friends!

Potluck Palooza

The company I work for had a potluck today for memorial day. I brought a side dish and a dessert. Side dishes can be tricky for potlucks I've come to realize, because cold food is easier to keep at work when you only have a microwave at your disposal for heating things up. But I decided to crockpot my side dish, so we'd have something warm. I also brought pie. I tend to like to bring cookies to things because I just love baking cookies, but with all the lemons gracing our tree in the backyard, a lemon meringue pie was hard to resist. I like to use a Martha Stewart recipe from her food magazine for my pie. It always turns out delicious!

Her recipe calls to follow part of a lemon curd recipe so here are links to both: Martha's Lemon Meringue Pie and Martha's Lemon Curd. For pie crust, I cheat and buy Marie Calendars already made crusts, because after all, I am a busy woman, and they come in two packs, and it's great reason to make another pie!

So here it is before the meringue

 And, of course, the final product!

Back to the side dish! It was just a calico beans recipe. If you've never made them, and you like baked beans, this is a great dish. A lot of the recipes online call for ground beef also, but the recipe I used did not. The beans are a great easy side dish for this potluck, but also great for when you're making something on the grill, whether it's hot dogs and burgers, or just some chicken breasts, and it's really easy, and clean up is a breeze when you use a crockpot liner (best invention ever).

Calico Beans

We don't have any special Memorial Day plans, so it was nice to have a little work gathering to celebrate the three day weekend!

Sometimes I bake cakes

When I started this blog, it was the idea that everything was open for discussion. So today, I am talking about cakes! Sort of a side hobby/interest I have is baking and decorating cakes. My husband asked me to make our son a cake for the completion of his first day of school. So I did, and like any overachiever, I tried to go "all out." Here are the results:

The Cake

 The Kid and the Cake :)