Apple Banana Bread for a Chilly Day

Yesterday morning, I was faced with the perfect storm for baking. I had overripe bananas sitting in my fruit bowl, an abundance of apples, and a chilly morning blowing cold wind past my window. It was all I needed to make a warm and comforting loaf of apple banana bread.

I've made this recipe a few times. I made it the day after our wedding as soon as we got back to Boston. I changed the recipe a bit this time but it's still just as good! (The recipe below is different from the one in the photo above.) The bread is tasty, sweet, and pretty healthy too! It calls for whole wheat flour, apple sauce, just a little bit of sugar, and there is no dairy or oil at all!

The smell that it fills the kitchen with is delicious and it's really easy to make. You only need one bowl! This bread is delicious by itself, toasted, or topped with a generous scoop of cream cheese, a pat of butter, or a spread of cranberry apple butter (Trader Joe's has a great one!). Enjoy!

Apple Banana Bread

2 ripe bananas
1 apple, peeled and diced
1/4 C sugar
1 3/4 C whole wheat flour
1/3 C apple sauce
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Optional: chopped nuts, chocolate chips, dried fruit

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a bowl mash bananas with a fork. Add diced apple, sugar, flour, applesauce, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, and anything else you want to add.
Pour into a greased or non-stick 9 inch loaf pan.
Bake for 35-45 minutes.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes and transfer to cooling rack.

Let me know how yours turns out! What are your favorite recipes to bake on chilly days?

Thanksgiving Plans

Can you believe Thanksgiving is one week away? I can't. It came up so fast—everything seems to be happening so fast this year! It'll be Christmas and New Year's before we even know it!

This year, Thanksgiving will be a brand new experience for me. It'll be the first Thanksgiving I experience as a wife, the first Thanksgiving I won't be with my family, and the first Thanksgiving that I will be doing all the cooking myself! I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull it off.

Because of AJ's job, we knew that he wouldn't have much time off around Thanksgiving so we opted to stay here and spend the holiday together and go to Connecticut the following week, when AJ will be able to take more time off so we can spend more time with family.

AJ still has to work on Thanksgiving but only a half day so he should be home by 1. That'll give me enough time to prepare a midday Thanksgiving dinner while watching the Macy's Parade—I love it! It makes me want to watch Miracle on 34th Street, too.

It's just the two of us and I've never cooked a big meal like this so I am trying to keep it as simple as possible so that I don't have to worry too much about something going wrong. Instead of a whole turkey, I'm planning on making just a turkey breast in the crockpot using this recipe. I also want to make a homemade cranberry sauce and I think this recipe looks good and easy. Sweet potatoes are a must but I want to try something different since we tend to eat a lot of sweet potatoes on a weekly basis.  I thought I would do a casserole with the marshmallows, but I found a little recipe for sweet potato puffs you can do on the stove top and that looks really yummy! I'll also do gravy and stuffing but I'm just going to have my mom tell me how to make those. For dessert, I plan to make pumpkin bars and these praline bars. I love pecan pie but I've never made on before and this simple recipe looks just as good!

To make the day a little more special, I brought two sets of our fine china that we were gifted at our wedding. Every time I think about using them, I think about the Thanksgiving episode of friends when Monica finally uses her China but they break all over the floor. Hopefully that won't happen!

What are your plans for Thanksgiving? Any turkey-cooking tips?

The First Sunday In October

Today, the first Sunday in October, was the epitome of Fall as far as weather goes. It was sunny but chilly and you definitely needed a jacket if you were walking in the sun. AJ and I filled today to the brim!

We started the day off really early, 6:30 am early. We got up and walked down Beacon Street to Mass Ave to go to Crossroads Irish Pub to watch the Manchester United game. We usually do this if there's a weekend game.

After the game, we came back home and AJ watched more soccer while I did lots of homework. At 11:30, we walked across the Longfellow Bridge to Cambridge to go to the Cambridgeside Galleria. I had to make a return and AJ had to pick up an order. We shopped around a bit—I need new jeans but they were all too long! And we smelled lots of yummy smelling and not so yummy smelling candles at Bath & Bodyworks. 

We came back home and changed into warm clothes, our building hasn't switched over to heat yet. I lit a pumpkin candle, made a pot of pumpkin spice coffee, and got back to homework while AJ watched football. I fell asleep on him around 4 and then started making dinner at 5.

I tried a new recipe for dinner, 5 ingredient white chicken chili. I used 4 cups of chicken broth, one can of pinto beans, a little over 1 cup of cooked chicken, 1 1/4 cups of salsa verde, and 2 teaspoons of cumin and I topped it with avocado. I was nervous because AJ doesn't like chili, and I always get nervous when I try recipes for the first time, but we both loved it! AJ cleaned the pot he liked it so much. So I'm glad that was a success. I also made loaded baked sweet potatoes with parsley, bacon bits, and a blend of Mexican cheese. It was a successful dinner.

Now we're watching the Pats game and I'm trying to get more homework done even though my brain doesn't work as well as it gets later into the night.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and I hope tomorrow is as happy a Monday as can be!