Fresh Pear Bread

This title might sound weird, but what else do you make when you are tricked by grocery store sales into buying 15 local pears for 1.50?

Obviously pear baked goods.

I found this great recipe with normal tasty ingredients and only made a couple changes. Subbed walnuts for roasted pumpkin seeds based on what I had on hand and subbed applesauce for oil (did not affect texture) and halved the recipe to make only one loaf.

Here is the finished product! 🙂

Nope, I don't own a real bread pan.

Banana oatmeal muffins

All of my former roommates, family, and close friends can attest to an obsession of mine: baking muffins. They are just the perfect snack or breakfast.  I’ve made almost every variety of muffins you can imagine. Some ingredients I always keep on hand are bananas and oatmeal because I eat this just about every morning for breakfast. Obviously, when I got home this afternoon after spending all Saturday in the library writing research papers(#gradschoolproblems), I wanted to bake muffins to decompress. What ingredients were available? Bananas and oatmeal.

I saved this recipe and altered it awhile back. It was originally from allrecipes.com, but I can’t find the original one because I changed some things though I can’t remember which things. Anyway, that’s my lame attempt at giving credit.

 

my breakfast for about 3 days. Yes, I always eat at least two.

Banana oatmeal muffins

1 c. oats
3 tbsp. sugar
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 mashed bananas
1/4 c. milk
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce (or canola oil)

Makes 8-10 regular size muffins. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes.

 

 

A day for baking.

Today it is raining in New Orleans. Rain makes me want to read a book, bake, and watch movies. I don’t have a good excuse to read a fun book or watch movies as I have research papers to write, but I have a legitimate excuse to bake!! Since I have this fabulous holiday cocktail game night to attend tonight, I stayed inside after this morning’s class and made the cake batter cookies I was talking about yesterday!

I got this very unhealthy but delightful recipe from a small town Mississippi church cookbook called the Merry Hearts Cookbook. Cute right? Obviously this is not on the internet or I would show you. However, I’m pretty sure the nice ladies who collaborated to make this cookbook wouldn’t mind my sharing the recipe.

yumyumyum

Oatmeal Cake Batter Cookies

1 box yellow cake mix (I used Pillsbury Extra Moist)

2 cups oatmeal

1 cup sugar

1 cup canola oil

2 eggs

1 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup sprinkles–>Actually the recipe called for pecans which would also be great here, but I wanted them to be cute 🙂

Mix all ingredients together and bake at 350 degrees F for about 10-15 min.

This is obviously not a surprising recipe as I’m pretty sure it has been around for awhile, but sometimes it boosts myself- baking-esteem to make a ridiculously easy, can’t go wrong recipe. Though in the interest of full-disclosure, I almost went wrong bc I spilled the cake batter all over my counter and had to sweep it up into the mixing bowl. #imabakingdisaster

Butternut Squash soup

I made this one day when I had some random ingredients, lots of free time (rare), and it was snowing outside. I wanted to write it down because it’s one of the few kitchen experiences when I’ve thrown together without any recipe in mind and ended up with a great product at the end. I wish I had a picture! My camera’s battery was low.

Butternut squash soup

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash chopped into small pieces

1 12 ounce can of green beans, drained

lots of pepper and some salt

olive oil or butter if you like some more buttery flavor

bit of garlic

Method:

Boil squash pieces and green beans together on stovetop with about 1-2 cups of water or chicken/veggie broth (or if you use butter or olive oil, sautee the squash first while green beans boil alone).

Once squash is sufficiently cooked, put all ingredients into a food processor or blender and puree. This soup is great with crusty bread and would perhaps benefit from cheesy toppings.  I froze leftovers for a week or so, then defrosted and warmed them up and it tasted just as great the second time.

It might sound weird, but I promise, it’s just what I needed on a snow day. 🙂