If you haven't baked your bacon in the oven you need to try this! This isn't a recipe per say, but you can cook an entire package of bacon at once, that turns out pretty much perfect every time with little effort.
The trick to making your bacon in the oven is putting the bacon in a cold oven. As the oven heats up, it slowly renders the fat.
You end up with crispy, meaty pieces.
Oven Baked Bacon
Line a half-sheet pan with parchment paper.
Lay bacon on pan, try not to have it overlap.
Place pan in COLD oven. Set oven temperature to 400º. Set timer for 20 minutes.
Remove pan from oven. Drain bacon grease and turn bacon pieces. Bake for 5-10 minutes longer, depending on how crispy you like your bacon. Check the bacon frequently so it does not get overdone.
When you buy two bunches of bananas each week at the grocery store, there are usually a few leftover. Even after you use this handy trick: Buy one bunch of bananas as green as possible and stick them in a Green Bag, and clip it closed.
These muffins are SO easy to make - dump and process! It takes longer for the oven to heat up than to get these mixed up. I call these 5 ingredients, because to me, everyone should have baking soda, salt and cinnamon in their panty 😉They are also gluten-free.
I use the food processor bowl from my Ninja Blender system, which has a very high powered motor. I put everything in the bowl, process for 90 seconds, scrape down the sides, add the chocolate chips, and process for a minute more. (The chocolate chips stay mostly intact but end up larger than had I used mini chips.) After the second process you should not be able to see pieces of the dates. You can also use a blender, but you may need to blend the mixture a little longer. I get 12 nicely domed muffins from each batch.
There is no added sugar, other than what is in the chocolate chips, so make sure your bananas are VERY ripe. As my mom would say, loaded with sugar spots. Don't worry, the dates provide the sugar!
Older's Thoughts:
This recipe is fast and easy to make. They are tasty and I like to have them with butter. This is a kid friendly recipe; just dump in the ingredients, blend, then spoon into the muffin tins and bake. I like this recipe a lot! You could also put in berries and other kinds of chocolate chips.
5 Ingredient Banana Oat Muffins
2 cups rolled oats
3 medium bananas, very ripe
2 eggs
¾ cup pitted whole dates
1 teaspoon baking soda
⅛ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350º
Mix all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.
Spoon batter into a greased muffin tin.
Bake for 15-20 minutes. Let rest in pan 5 minutes before removing from pan to a cooling rack to cool completely. Serve with a smear of butter or peanut butter.
Breakfast on weekends means pancakes or french toast. I try to do one or the other about once a month. This recipe makes a large batch, enough for two boys who will easily eat 6 or 8 (each!) and the two of us, plus a freezer bag full. It makes an easy breakfast for the boys during the school week and they taste so much better than store-bought frozen pancakes. You could halve the recipe if you don't want leftovers.
These Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes are by far our favorite. More often than not, I add chocolate chips, but we will on occasion, add blueberries. The nice thing about this recipe is it uses the whole quart of buttermilk. If it all possible, use real buttermilk, not soured milk or buttermilk powder.
I have three tricks for pancakes. One: Let the batter rest 5-10 minutes before dropping on a hot skillet. I think this helps with the fluffiness. Two: Use a cast iron skillet, because it maintains an even heat. I heat my pan to medium before dropping the batter. Three: Wait to drop the pancake batter until the butter has stopped bubbling.
Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes
4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 Tablespoons sugar
4 eggs
4 cups buttermilk
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips (use standard size, not mini) or blueberries
butter
Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl.
Combine the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry. Stir but do not beat. Lumps are okay.
Melt butter in a cast iron skillet over medium. Wait to drop pancake batter until butter has stopped bubbling.
Cook pancakes until bubbles that form on top, burst. Flip then cook the other side until golden brown.
It only seems like yesterday we were adjusting the spices in recipes so that they were more palatable for the boys to eat. Now, they tell us things aren't hot enough ( I think this has to do with age more than actual taste 😉).
When I saw this recipe, I knew it would be a hit. What I didn't expect was for it to be as good as it was! We all thought this was just as good, if not better, than a casual dining restaurant. The flavors are all there, without the breading or greasiness.
These tenders come together quickly, which is great for a weeknight meal. I did not have chicken tenders so cut up chicken breasts. I would not make that mistake again. The chicken breast strips started to fall apart a bit, so while the taste was there, it would have been better to have intact chicken tenders. I had help from Younger making these. He did the entire prep except for cutting up chicken breasts.
Today is a two-fer as I am also including a link to our FAVORITE Blue Cheese Dressing. The Blue Cheese dressing is a must when serving these tenders.
Younger's Thoughts: The sauce is excellent! You should just add a lot more sauce then recipe calls for.
Buffalo Chicken Tenders
1¼ pounds chicken tenders
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 Tablespoons butter
5oz bottle Louisiana-style hot sauce, we used Franks
2½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Blue Cheese Dressing
Mix the hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, oregano, and garlic powder.
Toss chicken with flour and pepper (I do this in a plastic, zip-top bag). In a large skillet, heat 1 Tablespoon butter over medium heat. Add half the chicken; cook until no longer pink, 4-6 minutes per side. Remove from pan. Repeat with remaining chicken and 1 Tablespoon butter.
In the same skillet, melt remaining butter; stir in hot sauce mixture. Add chicken; heat through, turning pieces to coat.
This is our absolute FAVORITE Blue Cheese Dressing. It is quick and easy to make. It is creamy and chunky.
I make this in a pint jar and shake to mix. I use these plastic lids when I make salad dressings.
Blue Cheese Dressing
2½ ounces blue cheese
5 Tablespoons buttermilk
3 Tablespoons sour cream
2 Tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
In a pint jar, mash blue cheese and buttermilk together with a fork until mixture resembles large-curd cottage cheese. Add remaining ingredients, put lid on jar, shake until well blended. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
This has become one of our favorite vegetables to serve with dinner. Roasting in the oven caramelizes the broccoli, giving a slightly nutty flavor and brown color on the pieces touching the pan. It takes longer for the oven to heat up then to get it ready to put it in.
The Hubs chopped up the broccoli for this batch, so I used fresh. Usually I grab a couple of bags of florets out of the freezer, and it is SO good! I roast it on a jelly roll pan and the four us usually take care of the whole thing at one sitting. When I use frozen, I do not thaw before baking.
Oven Roasted Broccoli
1 large head of broccoli or 2- 10oz bags frozen florets
2 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher Salt and Pepper to taste OR 1 teaspoon FishMama Spice
Preheat oven to 425º
Mix broccoli and olive oil on sheet pan. Sprinkle with seasoning. Bake 25-30 minutes.
I admit that I have a major sweet tooth. If it weren't for the Hubs checking and double checking most recipes I make, I would not even bat an eye about the sugar content in a recipe. I joke he is the healthiest person I know. Actually, it is not a joke, he is. I was thumbing though one of my favorite cookbooks, Run Fast Eat Slow, and spotted this recipe. The Hubs jokes that what I call quick breads are really cakes. It only has a 1/4 cup of sugar, so it quickly got put on the menu.
The Younger said he would like to make this recipe, so off we went.
We only had two ripe bananas on the counter, so we went to the freezer. I assume everyone has a bag of these, right?
I have found that peeling, and halving ripe bananas makes it easier for smoothies, whatnot. Today, it was banana bread.
Younger put this bread together quick as a wink. I enjoyed that he did EVERYTHING by himself. Because this recipe has only 1/4 cup sugar, your bananas need to be very, very ripe.
This bread is really quite nice. I know we will definitely be making it again because it is healthy and tastes good. You can tell it is made with whole grains and low sugar, in a good way. As I am writing this post, the loaf is pretty much devoured. Hubs and I liked it best when it had a light smear of butter. We did not use the optional walnuts as we have a tree nut allergy in the house, but they would be a delicious addition. Next time I will make sure to add the optional date pieces or golden raisins.
Younger's Thoughts:
It is very moist and the spelt flour adds a distinct taste that makes it better then it would be with regular wheat flour. The coconut sugar boosts it even more, even though there is only 1/4 cup of it! Overall, it is very delicious but I would recommend doubling the banana because the banana is overpowered by the flour.
Spelt Banana Bread - Run Fast Eat Slow
1 1/2 cups spelt flour - I had to buy online
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup coconut sugar or other granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (3 or 4 VERY ripe, brown speckled bananas)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup date pieces or golden raisins (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 º. Grease an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan.
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.
In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and sugar on low until combined. Add the eggs, beat one minute. Add the bananas and vanilla and mix until combined,
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in walnuts and dried fruit if using.
Pour into loaf pan and bake, 50-60 minutes, until top is golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove loaf from pan and cool completely prior to slicing.
