Fried Honey and Cinnamon Bananas

Okay, so this isn't exactly a "fried" banana more of a heated through banana! It's delicious and healthy! I pinned this awhile back, and couldn't wait to try it, so today was the day! You can see the health information on this snack at The Crohn's Journey Foundation's website! They break down each ingredient with all the nutritional facts about each one! It's worth the read even if you don't make this yummy snack! Let's get started...

Ingredients

One organic banana

Coconut Oil Cooking Spray

1 TB Organic honey

1/2 TB water

Cinnamon

Cut your banana into small rounds and set aside. In your skillet spray your coconut oil spray, and heat the skillet over medium/high heat. Add the banana rounds and brown on one side. Once they are browned, flip the over (carefully) and start browning the other side. Turn the stove off at this point and add your PRE-MIXED honey and water. At this point it's going to start getting very bubbly, and once that dies down you can sprinkle on the cinnamon. If you LOVE the taste of cinnamon be generous, if you are just adding for a touch of flavor, a light dusting will do! Remove them from the pan and let them cool, then enjoy! 

Honey and water mix

I didn't have the cooking spray, so I added a little bit of coconut oil to the pan! I use this for SOOOO many things including, toothpaste, hair conditioner, lotion, sunscreen, etc etc! It's awesome!

Here is the banana in the skillet getting browned! 

I LOVE cinnamon! If you'll take my advice and read up on the website where this recipe was pulled, you'll find that you might start adding cinnamon to recipes when you can :) I've added it to sloppy joe mix before and it was awesome! If you like Coney Island, did you know they add cinnamon to their chili!? (Not that that will make their coney's healthy lol but they are delish!)

Here it is just finishing up! I can still smell ALL of the ingredients in the house! 

Stay tuned for a new recipe...Shrimp & Grits! 

Until then...

Banana-Oat Smoothie

BANANA-OAT SMOOTHIE

One of my new favorite things to whip up in the kitchen since I re-placed my blender are smoothies! There are soooo many options, and I like to try all of them and keep notes in my recipe book about whether or not I liked them and if they worked! How does a smoothie "work" you ask? Well, there are so many combinations the possibilities are almost endless. Feeling sick? Make an anti-oxidant smoothie! Need some energy? Make an energizing smoothie! DJ and I have been trying to do better with tracking what we eat, so we can see what we're missing out on during the day! Now that I'm trying to get more in shape, it's especially important that I'm getting enough protein and calories to make up for what I burn off exercising! It's not always easy, and I'm NOT a calorie counter and HATE doing so, but it's important to stay healthy-so here we go down that road! 

So here are a few reasons why this smoothie is packed with a nourishing punch!  

According to LiveStrong, bananas come with the following:

Vitamins A,B,C,D,E, & K

Potassium

Healthy source of carbs

Fiber

Low Sodium

So with that being said, here are the ingredients...

1 Banana

1/2 c plain yogurt 

1/2 c milk (we use Almond)

1/4 c oats

1 TB honey

1 c ice

All you have to do is put all these ingredients into your blender and mix away! 

This particular recipe serves 2, and each serving is 165 calories! I would much rather down one of these for a snack than grab a bag of potato chips! 

You can find a list of smoothies at Whole Living, which I'm sure you'll hear back from me about more of these! I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always the healthiest eater, but I'm working on it!!

In goes the yogurt!

Yes, I have an OU gnome in my kitchen! We love him!!

Everything is in except for the ice!

Delicious!!

Until next time...

Kid Tested and Brother Approved

So, last night we had Dee Jay's brother Craig and his son Cameron over for dinner. I decided to make Paula Deen's Hot Chicken Salad for dinner and Lazy Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Balls for dessert. Both of these recipes I pulled off my Pinterest board and they were delicious! I'm a fan of pretty much ANYTHING Paula Deen whips up and I let Craig choose our dessert! So here is how I got ready for our small family dinner...

I started with the peanut butter balls because they needed to cool and come together before they were served. You take 3/4 of a cup of honey and one cup of peanut butter and heat this up on the stove until it starts boiling. Be sure and stir the ENTIRE time because it takes a second for this gooey mess to burn the bottom of your pan. Once your mixture is boiling remove it from the heat (where I had DJ stir now so it wouldn't burn) and you will pour in one teaspoon of vanilla and mix together. Then add 3 cups of Rice Krispies and 1 cup salted peanuts if you would like (we left them out but we did add some oatmeal)!

Mix this all together and then scoop a tablespoon or two into muffin tins. It's probably best that you spray some cooking spray in the liners before hand so they don't stick to the wrapper. Let it cool (I popped mine in the fridge and took it out right before dessert time) and then serve it up! It is a very rich dessert, which is good because one is about all we could eat!

Side thought: We thought adding a banana slice or two on top would taste fantastic as well as some chocolate chips or you could get fancy-pants and drizzle some chocolate over the top!

Here is the direct link to the recipe
Lazy Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Balls
3/4 c. Honey
1 c. Peanut Butter
1 tsp. Vanilla
3 c. Rice Krispie
1 c. Salted Peanuts (optional)

1. Combine honey and peanut butter in a saucepan and heat to boiling, stirring constantly
2. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Stir in Rice Krispies (and peanuts if desired).
3. Place mounds (about 2 tbs.) into small greased cupcake liners in a cupcake pan, and let cool.
4. You can also press into a greased 9" x 12" pan, cool and cut into squares.

Now onto Paula Deen's hot chicken salad. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. In a big bowl, you are going to mix together two cups of cooked chicken (cubed), one cup of diced celery (I used two stalks), 1/2 cup of slivered almonds, 1/2 of a teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, two tablespoons of lemon juice, one cup of mayonnaise (I of course thought we had more mayo than we did so we added a little bit of Ranch dressing to make the cup), and finally one cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

Place this mixture into a baking dish....I'm going to stop right here for a second. This recipe says it serves 8-10 people. I understand that as a very tiny side dish this would serve more people, but the recipe mixture fit nicely into our meatloaf pan and we barely had enough to feed four of us. So if you're thinking about making this make sure you make enough because it is delicious and you will want seconds and thirds! Okay, back to cooking we go! Once the mixture is in the dish you are going to crumble up potato chips and sprinkle over the top! Pop it in the oven for 20 minutes and Ta-Da!! The celery, the almonds, the lemon juice, all of it comes together to make your mouth happy! 

 These were my sides tonight

Here is the direct link to her page with the recipe
Hot Chicken Salad
2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 cup diced celery
2 cup cooked chicken breast meat, cubed
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
2/3 cup crushed potato chips

Mix all together (except for chips), put in baking dish and cover with crushed chips and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Tonight's dinner has been cooked for you by Shelly, and has been kid tested and brother approved!!
~Happy Cooking~