Eggless Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

I tried a few years ago to incorporate food into my blog. You know, like all of those other professional lifestyle bloggers who blog about everything effortlessly - beauty, fashion, faith, fitness, food, parenting, diy, and travel all in one perfectly written html. Sometimes I think that's the direction I want this blog to head in. I imagine glorious baking days and hours of food styling for the photographs.

But then, so much of what I dream up for this blog never actually transcends from my brain to the blog because of time or motivation. Food posts especially will never make it on here consistently simply because I dislike cooking and baking. Sure, I bake sometimes, and I cook all the time. But it's only out of necessity. 

 However, just a few days ago I knew it was time to make banana bread since I had some overripe bananas sitting on my kitchen counter. My son offered to make it. I went to look up a recipe for him and then thought, what the heck - let's try something different. I told my son what ingredients to get out based on what I knew I had on hand, and then told him what to mix in and when. It must have been my lucky day because, voila! they came out perfectly! The best banana bread I've ever had. Rich, moist, and just the right flavor.

 In that moment of tasting this gooey, chocolatey banana bread goodness, I imagined this blog to be riddled with Martha Stewartesque blog posts with numerous original recipes by yours truly.

But that moment is already gone. Enjoy this one food post while it lasts.

I doubt the stars will align perfectly again any time soon for future original Domestic Sophisticate recipes, but until then, I give you picture #37 of my attempts at food styling and taking photos with my new camera.

 And now the moment you all have been waiting for (drumroll please) . . . 

 The Eggless Banana Chocolate Chip Bread Recipe:

Two ripe bananas

1.5 sticks of softened butter

1/2 c honey

1/4 c maple syrup

1 c of plain nonfat greek yogurt (I used the stuff from Costco Fage brand)

Cream above ingredients.

Stir in the following:

Dash of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1 cup of whole wheat flour*

1 cup of unbleached white flour

2 cups of dairy free dark chocolate chips* (low sugar – 51% cocoa) I used the Costco Kirkland brand

Bake for 50 minutes at 350 in a floured/greased pan (I floured mine).

*If you add nuts instead of chocolate chips, or sugar free chocolate chips – it would be sugar free. You could use all whole wheat flour and all organic ingredients to make it even healthier. 

Food Post: Chicken Souvlaki

One of my best friends bought me a subscription to the House Beautiful magazine. One of the many things I love about it is their recipe of the month. I tried this month's recipe, chicken souvlaki, and loved it!

 You use cilantro, lemon, yogurt, tumeric, coriander, chili pepper, and olive oil to marinate the chicken in, and then once you grill the chicken on kebabs, they are ready to be stuffed in pitas with cilantro and a cilantro, lemon, and yogurt sauce. I cut up boiled beets, sugar snap peas, and green onions for the side, too. So fresh and light, but packed with flavor!

 The best thing about cooking is getting to wear one of my aprons from my apron collection!

 Even my 4 year old son loved it, and there's not much he likes.

French Macaroon

Hi! Missi here, I'm out in Ohio visiting Nic "helping" her and getting my fill of her two adorable children.

Nic and I have been talking about making French Macaroons for awhile now, so this morning I thought I'd try my hand.

We did run into a problem, we were unable to obtain Almond flour for our delectable treats. So...I MADE some! Using Nic's blender I put in a few handfuls and whirled away. After, I went ahead and sifted the Almond flour, in hopes to rid myself of some of the skin.

Next I made a little raspberry puree for the cookies.

Sugar, Anyone?

After whipping the egg whites till light and fluffy, folding in the flour/sugar mixture and adding the raspberry puree. I pipped the filling onto parchment paper and placed in a preheated oven for about ten minutes.
After cookies cooled, I sandwiched with raspberry jam and had my taste tester sample for approval. Approval was granted:-)
I tried two batches. One batch I cooked longer then the other, seeing which would taste better.
In the end, the shorter cooked cookies not only tasted the best, but also kept their pink color
Next time I'll use blanched almonds for my flour, so there aren't any brown flecks in the cookies and I'll try some cocoa powder in the cookie and chocolate ganache for the filling!

Food Post: Homemade flour tortillas

I grew up on homemade whole wheat flour tortillas, but must confess, since marriage, I have not made them myself.

We were having some friends over last night and I had a hankering for chicken burritos. We had no tortillas in the house so I decided to make some from scratch. Very simple to make, just a bit time consuming to roll out. The tortillas turned out great! Warm, yummy, fresh tortillas are the best! I used this recipe.
The filling was chipotle lime shredded chicken, black beans, corn, mozzarella, cream fraiche and lettuce. We also had a fabulous side dish of mexican rice that my friend brought over (I was told it was rice, chicken broth and a can of diced tomatoes with chilies)
Hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving!

Food Post: Cashew Chicken

My in-laws have been on a 10 day cleansing fast. The past few days they have been slowly adding certain juices and fresh foods back into their diet. Saturday night was the first night that they allowed themselves to eat a full meal, so my husband and I invited them over to dinner to celebrate!
I love having an excuse to pull out my china and crystal!
I made cashew chicken in lettuce cups - a recipe I found in the Real Simple magazine, and I absolutely adore!

I cooked the rice in coconut milk for more of an exotic flavor. The fruity taste with the nutty grain was fabulous! I usually use Jasmine rice when I cook rice with coconut milk, but their fast restrictions would not allow them to include white rice in their diet yet, so we chose the healthier option of brown.

I made a spicy sauce to go with the dish which added just the right amount of zing. The sauce was one part soy sauce to one part honey. A teaspoon of mustard, a teaspoon of grated ginger, garlic powder, and a teaspon of horse radish. Delicious!

Food Post: Trying Something New

Missi and I have decided we'd add a new dimension to our Domestic Sophisticate blog...

"Food Posts."

I've been in a rut with cooking lately and needed some new inspiration. I've been cutting recipes out of magazines, watching the Food Network, and reading food blogs, and have a stack of new recipes and ideas now to try. Having this new angle with the blog is great incentive!

Style and sophistication for a stay-at-home-mom is not just about dressing your best...it's about having sophistication in every area of your "home" life. We'd like to start adding posts on food, home decorating, and more do-it-yourself projects on top of our regular clothing style and beauty posts.

So here's my first food post:

Last night I made this quinoa toss salad from the Better Homes & Garden magazine.

The first bite was amazing! So many flavors, and it tasted so fresh! Even my 4-year old liked the first couple of bites. After the first bites, though, the flavors were so strong and so different from each other, that it was almost too much. This dish would have worked better as a very small side dish to something a little more bland, I think.

Perhaps it was too strong because I used red onions instead of sweet, and pickled beets instead of freshly cooked beets.

The herbs were great, but I think if I made this again I would forego the basil. The parsley was the right herb and was enough.

Five days of outfits

Last sunday my kiddos came down with little coughs. After a few months worth of my kids having tiny colds on and off, I decided I was going to stay home for a week and make sure they were 100% before subjecting them to my normally busy schedule.

I found that staying home all week allowed me more then enough time to tackle many projects I had been putting off. One of which was organizing my clothes closet. My daughter helped me arrange my summer clothes and winter clothes. Clothes that needed to be repaired, given away or just thrown out. While going through my closet I decided to create outfits for the remainder of the week, that I would wear.

Now, I have tried from time to time to pre-selecting my outfits and then haven't been able to keep with what I created. So I figured if I took pictures every day and told myself by the end of the week I'd post them on the blog...I'd stick to my preselected wardrobe. So here ya go!

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

We went out to coffee at Batdorf and Bronson on Saturday and I drank the most delicious latte!

Sunday

I decided last minute to switch out the booties for my brown tall boots...really gotta get a pair of black tall boots!
Cooking on Saturday night was inspired by a package of pancetta and some brussel sprouts that needed to be cooked. (Oh, and I almost always cook one handed, as my little 7mon old likes to see everything!)

and some crumbled Pecorino Romano to sprinkle on the top of it all.Finished product was ravioli's crumbled pancetta, brussel sprouts, romano, a bit of butter, salt and pepper...very yummy!