I’m what you call a procrastinator.

Right this very second, me writing these words is evidence of me procrastinating. Sure, I have to share this smoothie with you, blah blah, and we’ll get back to it. But really I should be in my kitchen testing recipes for big project I’m working on (I’ll tell you soon!).

Instead of cooking, I’m chilling on my couch, with one hand checking Instagram, another typing this, all while intermittently looking up at the TV to check out what Carrie’s doing on some random re-run of Sex and the City. (Seriously, what’d I do without E! playing these re-runs?! I did work, that’s what.)

It isn’t until I get totally disgusted with myself over said procrastination that I actually get the work done. And I have to say, I do my best work under pressure. I hustle. I get it done. But man, is it painful…

Please tell me you’re a procrastinator too. Don’t tell me you’re prompt, easily self-motivated, etc. Actually, do tell me that and tell me how you are. Procrastination cures. I need ‘em.

Smoothies in the morning are hard for me. Coffee? Or smoothie? I’ll always choose coffee. I go to sleep at night dreaming of the next morning’s cup.

This smoothie is a healthy marriage between the two.

Some cacoa nibs (a.k.a. super hero food) give this smoothie a chocolatey flavor and add some nice texture.

Since it’s not sweetened you’ll need some agave. A banana adds awesome flavor. And a few splashes of coconut milk makes this smoothie vegan appropriate.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go cook wash my hair.

Cacao Coffee Banana Smoothie

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2 tablespoons raw cacao nibs
1 frozen banana
1/2 cup strongly brewed coffee, cooled
4 tablespoons coconut milk
1 1/2 tablespoons agave
1 handful of ice

Add everything to the blender and pulse for 60 seconds. Yum. Hi, healthy smoothie!

Hi cute people. It’s me Adrianna. Yeah, me. Hi. What day is it? Tuesday? You dunno…yeah, me neither. I’m swamped in work. I don’t know where the day starts and where it ends. Is this real life?

The fun part about being busy is having a proper reason to stress eat. I have a legit excuse to eat more! And since this banana pudding was in my fridge, it was my tool of choice.

I’ve wanted to make this for over a year and finally got around to it. Total plus: not super fussy. It’s about 20 minutes away from start to finish.  I urge you to have the patience to let it get really cold in the fridge. It’s way better that way.

This pudding is cozy creaminess delivered in a super refreshing, cold way. It’s a perfect dessert for hot summer night.

Cutest thing about this pudding is the layers. Who doesn’t like layers? Even in the summer I like dressing in layers.  I know we’re talking about pudding and not dressing but it’s relatable, I swear.

P.S. Teresa’s (from Real Housewives of NJ) money problems stress me out. WHY?!

Cure: More banana pudding.

P.P.S. Summer and work should be totally illegal.  That’s all. I like you, per usual. Bye.

Banana Pudding

Recipe tweaked from A Sweet Spoonful

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3 cups whole milk

3 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup + 1 tsp flour

Pinch of salt

1 tsp. vanilla

6 oz. vanilla wafers (about half of a box)

3 bananas

3/4 cup whipping cream (or more if you’d like!)

1/8 cup powdered sugar

Add milk and egg yolks to a medium saucepan and whisk.  Add sugar, flour, and salt and whisk until smooth.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, 20 minutes or until thickened.  If it’s not getting as thick as you’d like after 20 minutes, feel free to add another teaspoon of flour. Remove from heat; stir in the vanilla.

You can arrange in a big bowl or small mason jars. For either, arrange vanilla wafers in bottom of a small serving dish (or mason jar). Slice 1 banana and layer over wafers. Spoon custard over bananas. Repeat until custard is gone and you have a few solid layers.

Beat whipping cream at medium speed with an electric mixer until foamy; gradually add powdered sugar to mixture, beating until soft peaks form. Spread over custard. Serve immediately or cover and chill for eight hours.

 

 

 

I dig breakfast more than most. I’m the girl that wakes up early to make pancakes on a random Wednesday morning. But, you know, sometimes I need it to be fast and delicious…super fast.

I also don’t want it to create a mess or dishes. That’s for pie and cake. When I make a pie and make a mess, that’s expected. Dishes aren’t appropriate for a Monday morning breakfast.

So…I wanted to share with you a few of the things I’ve been eating for breakfast during the week. No pancakes, no elaborate egg sandwiches, just a few ideas that’ll take you five minutes or so.

The first one is my new obsession: Quinoa Oatmeal.  I’ll make a big batch of quinoa and put it in a tupperware in the fridge.

When I’m ready for breakfast, all I do is heat it up with a splash of almond milk, spoonful of honey, dash of vanilla and cinnamon and top it off with some fruit and yogurt. Delicious. Warm. Crunchy. I’m in luuurve! 

Carrot and Grapefruit Juice!! All sorts of delicious. And surprisingly filling. Citrusy, sweet carroty, and healthy, obvi.

Broiled Grapefruit with brown sugar and a teeny-tiny bit of ground ginger. It’d been wanting to try it ever since Joy posted it.  This week I finally got around to it. It’s a little citrusy, a little spicy and whole lot of sweet…all in a good way. 

This doesn’t take five minutes–it takes two minutes…if even that. Muesli with almond milk and raspberries. Totally not a recipe.

I’m digging muesli way more than granola these days–it’s less sweet and apparently a bit healthier?  P.S. I totally eat this for dinner, too.

Peach and Banana Yogurt Smoothie. I did a really bad job with selling the peach part in that picture, didn’t I?

But you can see it peaking through the almond milk at the very bottom.  Do you see the orange?! Barely, right…sorry! But it’s there. It tasted peachy, and all banana like.

I think a scoop of protein shake would make this a total winner.

What’s your fav fast breakfast meals?

xo

Adrianna

P.S. I included a few loose recipes after the jump!

Quinoa Oatmeal

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1/4 cup of cooked quinoa*

1 tablespoon of honey

1 tablespoon of almond milk

1 dash of cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon of vanilla

1 tablespoon of yogurt

3 or 4 peach slices

*For Quinoa

1 cup uncooked quinoa

2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon of salt

*Start by rinsing the quinoa under cold water.  Add the cleaned quinoa and two cups of water to a medium pot and bring to a boil with a tightly covered lid.  Cook for 15 minutes, or until all of the water is absorbed.  Remove quinoa from heat and allow to sit five minutes with the lid on.  Fluff quinoa gently with a fork.  Let cool before transferring to a tupperware.

Add quinoa, honey, cinnamon, almond milk, vanilla to a small bowl (or saucepan) and reheat. Top with a tablespoon of yogurt and a few slices of peaches (or your favorite fruit).

Peach and Banana Yogurt Smoothie

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Yields 1 smoothie

1/2 peach, sliced

1/2 banana

2 tablespoons of plain yogurt

Small handful of ice

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla

1/4 cup of almond milk

In a blender, add all of the ingredients and pulse for a minute, or until completely blended. That’s all!

Broiled Grapefruit with Brown Sugar and Ginger

Recipe by Joy the Baker

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Yields 1 serving

1/2 grapefruit and segmented with a grapefruit knife

1 to 2 Tablespoons brown sugar, you can eyeball it

a few sprinkles of ground ginger

Set the oven to broil and place a rack on the top shelf of the oven.  You want the grapefruit to be as close as possible to the broiler heat.

Halve and segment one half of grapefruit.  You may need to trim the bottoms of the grapefruit so it sits up straight.

Place in a broiler safe pan and sprinkle with brown sugar and ginger.  Place in the oven under the broiler.  Bake for 5 to  7 minutes, keeping an eye on it as it cooks.  Feel free to rotate the pan as the grapefruit browns.

Remove from oven and serve warm or at room temperature.  Be sure to squeeze all the juice out when you’re done eating.  It’s the best part!

Let’s do some food math.

In the above picture there are seven pretty banana fritters. Below are two bananas, sliced into eleven pieces.

Eleven minus seven equals four. Now you know how many banana fritters I stuffed in my mouth before I forced myself to stop.

I had to a get a decent picture. When I loaded the pictures onto my computer I noticed that I only took three photos of the final fritters. THREE! I was so psyched about them that I didn’t even have the patience to take photos.

All this just means that you must make them and forgive me for the sorta out of focus shot above. I had fritters to eat.

These Spicy Banana Fritters are as easy as pie. Also, side note: who came up with that lame phrase. Because anyone who’s made a pie knows it’s not easy. Moving on…

All you need is a few bananas. Since I have little self control (see above) I decided to slice up two bananas instead of the recommended four. I knew I couldn’t be trusted. I knew that I’d have a lot of batter left, but I figured it would outweigh the shame and guilt I would’ve felt had I eaten forty banana fritters. That would’ve totally happened.

I sliced up the bananas and then peeled them. I stuck some squewers in ‘em, dull side in. If you put the pointy part in then the banana will fall off the screwer. Total fact.

I then made the batter, which consisted of flour mixture, some honey and a whole lot of pale ale! Yum.

In this case, you want a strong pale ale. You want that hoppiness to come through in the batter.  Don’t worry, it tastes lovely.

Then brush your banana slices with a little bit of chili paste.  I used Sriracha. I put Sriracha on everything, though this was the first time I ever tried it on a banana. I thought it was a little weird, not gonna lie.

Secret! After I ate those first four fritters, I decided that I wanted them more spicy, so I brushed on some extra Sriracha before I dunked them in the batter.  If you’re like me and love spicy, I’d recommend doing that too.

I then fried them up in some hot oil and took them out after a few minute, when they were a pretty golden brown. I drained them for a bit on a paper towel and them moved them to a bowl of cinnamon and sugar.

They rolled around in it for a few seconds. They had a good time.

I dusted them with some powdered sugar and then proceeded to eat all seven of them.  Which left zero.

Spicy Banana Fritters

Recipe by Ed Cotton from Top Chef

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I’ve read a lot of banana fritter recipes and most of them recommend overly ripe bananas. I disagree, wholeheartedly. I used bananas that were just ripe and loved that they were a little firm.  I have this fear that if you use super brown bananas, the fritters will just be a big ole’ soggy mess.

Batter:
2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons of black and white sesame seeds ( I only had white sesame seeds)

1 teaspoons of baking powder

3 tablespoons of sugar

salt to taste

1 tablespoon of honey

2 large eggs

2 cups of hoppy pale ale

Bananas:
4 large bananas cut into 1-inch medallions

Sambal Oelek or similar chili paste (I used Sriracha)

Wooden skewers for serving

2 tablespoons of cinnamon mixed with 4 tablespoons of granulated sugar

2 cups of vegetable oil heated to 350 degrees

Powdered sugar for dusting

Mix all of the batter ingredients until thoroughly incorporated. Don’t overmix. Treat it like pancake mix; it should have lumps.

Heat your oil. (Note: I don’t have a candy thermometer since

Brush banana medallions with a little bit of Sriracha chili paste; then spear medallions on skewers and dip in batter to coat. Dunk the coated medallions in the hot oil and fry for about 1 minute, or until the fritters become puffy and golden brown. Transfer fritters to a paper-towel-lined tray and sprinkle them while hot with cinnamon and sugar mixture. To finish, put a dollop of chili paste on a plate and place fritters on top (I liked it without the extra chili paste on the plate). Sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!

I’m well into my 20s and just now learned how to properly peel a banana.  How I went all this time not knowing the proper way is beyond me.  A few weeks ago, I was working late and decided I needed a snack.  I went to the kitchen, grabbed a banana and tried to open it.  Not wanting to give, I dug my nails in.  I tried snapping off the stem.  Still no luck.  Then a co-worker of mine walked over, turned the banana over and peeled it with total ease.  It totally blew my mind.  I thought he was a genius.  I mean, it’s sort of a life changing revelation. I’ve been eating bananas since I was a kid, quite often actually, and just now learned this.  I feel like this is the type of thing you learn along with tying your shoes, folding clothes, opening a door–it’s like an essential piece of information as a human being.  Apparently this is the way gorillas and monkeys peel bananas.  I love that I open it the same way they do now.  I think it’s pretty cute.  I feel like it makes us friends now or something. I feel like if I bumped into them in the jungle and we both picked up a banana, they’d respect me, you know, ’cause I know how to do it the right way.  They’d give me that nod of approval they’re always doing.

Anyway, in an attempt to exploit my new banana peeling skills, I decided I was going to make lots of stuff with bananas.  I made a few banana milkshakes, and those were cool, but not really anything too exciting.  And sure, banana bread is cool too, but I mean, the internet is filled with recipes of banana bread.  Then I remembered these awesome little cupcakes I made awhile back for a brunch I went to.  They’re disguised as cupcakes but really banana bread, and what makes them even more awesome is that they have icing on them.

And I decided that instead of putting any ol’ icing, I’d put this icing recipe that I found on Tasty Kitchen; it’s appropriately called “That’s the Best Frosting I Ever Had”.  This seriously is the best frosting I’ve ever had.  I’ll never go back to anything else.

P.S. If you’d like a tutorial on how to open a banana like a money, then click here.

Banana Bread Cupcakes with “That’s the Best Frosting I Ever Had”

Cupcake recipe by Martha Stewart. Icing recipe from Tasty Kitchen

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Some people love their banana bread super-duper moist.  If that’s the case, I recommend putting 1 3/4 cup of mashed banana.  Also, a few tips with the icing:  on Tasty Kichen there was much debate about whether or not the butter should be room temperature and I found that it should be a little bit in between.  It shouldn’t be super soft, meaning that if you cut the butter with a plastic knife it should give a little but not turn to mush.  If it’s too melted then the sugar won’t properly incorporate and you’ll have grainy icing on your hands.  Not fun.

CUPCAKES:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 4 ripe bananas), plus 1 whole banana, for garnish (optional)

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans

ICING:

1 cup Milk

5 Tablespoons Flour

1 teaspoon Vanilla

1 cup Butter, barely room temperature

1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

Since the icing has 2 steps, I’d start it first.   So in a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. (If you’re in a hurry, place the saucepan over ice in the sink for about 10 minutes or so until the mixture cools.)

Then turn your attention to the cupcakes and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Make a well in center of flour mixture. In well, mix together butter, mashed bananas, eggs, and vanilla. Stir to incorporate flour mixture (do not overmix). Add chopped walnuts and fold in. Dividing evenly, spoon batter into muffin cups (I filled them up about 3/4 of the way full) and place in preheated oven. You’re going to want to bake them for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

While the cupcakes are in the oven, go back to the icing and cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla to the cooled milk/flour mixture.  Then add the cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat until it all combines and resembles whipped cream.

NOTE:  The milk/flour/vanilla mixture MUST be cooled before you add it to the butter and sugar mixture.  Also, if you’d like to see the step-by-step post that Ree did about the icing, then click here.

Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely on a wire rack. Spread tops with frosting. Just before serving, peel and slice banana into rounds, and place one on each cupcake.

Sometimes failure isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes it ends up being downright delicious, like this banana cream pie. I’ll give you two reasons why this wasn’t one of my kitchen “successes.”

1)    This was supposed to be a caramel banana cream pie. However, I burned my finger while making the caramel sauce, and then subsequently burned the sauce while I tended to my finger. So, this became a caramel-less pie.

2)    Even though I now know how to make my own piecrust, I decided to use a store brand with this recipe. Sorry – I get lazy sometimes. However, I learned my lesson when, while baking in the oven, the crust softened and shrunk. You’ll notice how it doesn’t go over the edges of the pie dish. Yeah…it was a crust failure.

However, despite of its shortcomings, this was still a good pie. So good in fact, that I’ll even admit to eating all but one slice over the weekend. I mean, Chase did help me a little, but if we’re being really honest, I had twice as many slices as he did. Banana cream pie just does that to me, even when it’s not covered in caramel and I have to eat it with a finger that’s bandaged and throbbing. Sometimes there’s nothing better than soaking up our failures, especially if they’re covered in whipped cream.

Banana Cream Pie

Adapted from Recipe Zaar

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I personally think that when it comes to banana cream pie, bananas are the starring role and the cream is the supporting player. It’s basically there to just bind everything together. That’s why I recommend filling the crust with sliced bananas and then pouring the custard over it to just fill in the cracks, leaving you with a pie that isn’t sickly sweet. I ended up with a little extra custard after doing this, but feel free to use whatever ratio you want.

1 9-inch pie shell, baked
3 cups milk
3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 very ripe bananas

Have baked 9-inch pie shell ready (if you buy store-bought, get a good one. But really, making your own is much better)

In a large saucepan, scald the milk by heating it until it just begins to boil. Combine the sugar, flour and salt and then gradually stir into scalded milk. Over medium heat, stirring constantly, cook until thickened.

Combine the 3 egg yolks in a small bowl and beat lightly. Stir a small amount of the hot mixture into beaten yolks; when thoroughly combined, stir yolks into hot mixture – this prevents the eggs from scrambling in the custard. Cook for one minute longer, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and blend in the butter and vanilla. Allow to sit until lukewarm. When ready to pour, fill the pie shell with sliced bananas and pour warm mixture over bananas. Allow to set in the refrigerator for at least and hour. Top pie with fresh whipped cream.