Two Favorite Snacks: Apple Slices with Honey & Cinnamon and Ooey Gooey Banana & Peanut Butter

I love snacking. I typically eat a little bit every 2 to 3 hours during the day, so many of the times I'm eating I would consider what I'm eating to be a "snack" rather than a meal. My lunches are more meal-like, but they tend to be small, and during the week at work you can often find me having a snack about two hours after I've eaten lunch.... And then I also often have a snack when I get home from work...and in the mid-morning I have a snack. So, you see, I snack a lot. ;)

For fun, I thought I'd share with you a couple of my current, favorite snacks. I sometimes go in cycles; I have a particular snack that's my favorite for a few months, and then eventually I change it up and have another favorite go-to snack for a while. Well, currently my two favorites are apple slices with honey and cinnamon and a warmed, mashed banana mixed with peanut butter. Let me explain!

Perhaps some of you enjoy apples like this too. For my sliced apple snack, I simply cut up an apple, drizzle it with a bit of honey and then sprinkle a little cinnamon on top. Delish!! I also love apples plain, but every now and then I'm in a mood to eat them differently, so that's when this apple, honey, and cinnamon snack comes into play. Such a great combo.

And for the past few weeks, at least two or three times a week, I've been having an ooey gooey banana and peanut butter snack. If you love the flavor combo of banana and peanut butter (and let's be serious - who doesn't?!), you'll love this. Generally, I cut up either half a banana or a whole one, depending on how hungry I am, and I put the banana slices in a mug. You could also do this in a bowl but it's more fun in a mug for some reason. Then I add about two teaspoons or so of peanut butter to the mug and pop it in the microwave. The first amount of time I "nuke" it for is usually 30 seconds and depending on the ripeness of the banana, sometimes it needs another nuking of about 15 more seconds or so. Usually after a total of 45 seconds, the banana and peanut butter are plenty warm, and the banana has become mushy and soft. I stir everything together and eat it by the spoonful! Soooo good. I personally think this snack is better with bananas that are on the riper side (i.e., have some brown spots on them). One time last week when I needed a more substantial snack to last me a few hours until I would be eating dinner, I enjoyed the warmed, mashed peanut butter and banana on a toasted 100-calorie whole wheat sandwich thin. Also delicious!! This weekend I had a whole banana with some peanut butter (warmed up and mashed together, of course!) before I went to the gym to take a Turbo Kick class. It was the perfect fuel to get me through a tough workout!

It doesn't look all that appetizing, but trust me, it's delicious. And it's so fun to eat out of a mug!

This was when I spread the deliciousness on a toasted whole wheat sandwich thin.

What are some of your favorite snacks that are on the healthy side and don't take much time to prepare? I'd love to hear them. Perhaps you have an idea that will become my next go-to snack once these two are out of the rotation! :)

Whole Foods Pecan Recipe Contest Results!

It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Drum roll, please... And the winner of the Whole Foods contest "Your Best Recipe with Pecans" is pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies!! Yeah!

(photo source)

I mentioned it briefly in my latest post, but in case you missed it, my recipe did, in fact, win the contest! I am pretty darn excited. So cool! The results were announced on Friday, January 13th, which as I had mentioned earlier last week, is a lucky day in my family in general and it's also my mom's birthday. So to me, it's even cooler that I found out my recipe won on the lucky day of January 13th!! Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to vote for my recipe online and to cheer me on. It really means a lot to me! I've had multiple friends and family let me know that they've already made the recipe or intend to make it soon. I hope everyone enjoys it! You can find the original recipe either on my blog here or on the Whole Foods Market Cooking website.

For those of you who follow my blog regularly (thank you!), you probably already know quite a bit about me. However, if you're interested in learning more random details about the "Barbershop," on the Whole Foods Market Cooking blog today, there's a little "Q & A" session about me! You can learn things I'm sure you've always been curious about...you know, like if I was reincarnated as a single dish, what would I be, or does my ideal dinner party include 2, 4 - 6, or 8+ guests? You can find the answers to those questions and more over on the Whole Foods blog!

I also wanted to thank a lovely friend and fellow blogger, Jeanne from Adirondack Baker, who wrote a blog post over the weekend about my victory in the contest. So thoughtful! Take a few minutes to look over Jeanne's blog; you won't be disappointed! She creates some amazing goodies in her kitchen. I am continually amazed by her talent in the kitchen! Some of my favorite posts are about her cake creations, like this super cute snowman cake and her grandson's treasure chest cake she made for his third birthday.

Also, I wanted to talk about cinnamon baking chips for a minute. A few friends and family have contacted me, wondering where they can buy them. Well, some Whole Foods stores may carry them, but I haven't bought them there yet. In the Boston area, I've found them at both Shaw's and Stop and Shop stores. I believe that my mom has bought them before at Hannaford in NY state. If you're unable to find them near you though, you can always resort to buying them online! Amazon actually has a decent price for the Hershey's brand cinnamon chips, which is the brand I most commonly use. Many different brands of baking chips make cinnamon-flavored ones though! They are sooo yummy. If you've never baked with cinnamon chips, you really need to give them a try!

(photo source)

Lastly, a big thank you to Whole Foods for hosting such a great contest! For all you cooks, bakers, bloggers, and foodies out there, I'd recommend that you check out the various recipe contests that Whole Foods Market Cooking sponsors on a regular basis and I'd encourage you to enter one of your own recipes. I was completely surprised when I made it to the final two and even more surprised when I actually won! Overall this was a really fun, positive experience that makes me love Whole Foods even more than I did previously! I've recently begun shopping there more regularly now that we have a store in the town where I live and work; it opened last November. It's the smallest Whole Foods store in the country (at least that's the rumor I've heard!) and I love it. They even carry local pork from my super small hometown in rural upstate NY. Pretty neat!

Now, I'm pretty sure that what I'll be doing this week is heading to Whole Foods and using my winnings to buy $100 worth of ingredients to make several dozen pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies. ;) I have a lot of friends, family, and coworkers who have requested samples of these prize-winning cookies since they so nicely voted for my recipe without actually tasting them!

Thanks for listening to my ramblings here today, friends! I'll leave you with one more thought:

Found this awesome saying on Pinterest. So perfect!

:)

Whole Foods "Your Best Recipe with Pecans" Contest: I'm a Finalist!

Hey friends! So just yesterday in my post about baked parmesan tomatoes, I reminded you that today Whole Foods would be announcing the two finalists for the "Your Best Recipe with Pecans" contest, and I asked for your good luck wishes that my cookie recipe would make it... Well your good luck vibes must have worked because my pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies made it to the final two! Woohoo! I am quite excited. :)

Now I am going to so kindly ask you to please head on over to the contest website and vote for my recipe, if you don't mind! To vote, you do need to create an account, but it only takes a very quick minute, I promise. And you don't have to choose to get the Whole Foods Market Cooking newsletter if you don't want to, but I recommend that you do! The newsletters have some wonderful recipes, cooking tips, etc. 

What I love about this contest is that someone actually made the recipes that were submitted to test them out! I think that's very cool that someone physically followed my recipe in a test kitchen to see if it was worthy of becoming a finalist. You can read her impressions here too. Neato. :)

Thanks for your support, friends! You have until 12:00 p.m. ET on this Friday the 13th to vote! Yes, that's Friday the 13th. It's always been considered a lucky day in my family, so I'm hopeful! And January 13th is my mom's birthday too, so that makes it even better.

I'll be back again soon this week with a great winter recipe of a delicious baked potato soup!

Pecan, Cranberry, Cinnamon Chip Cookies

Hello blog friends and happy 2012 to you! I'm especially excited about this year since 2012 is the year I'll be getting married. :) Only 306 days to go! It'll be here before we know it...

Although our wedding is clearly on my mind, there's another very important thing on my mind at the moment. What might that be? Well, it's pecan, cranberry, cinnamon chip cookies, of course!! I made these cookies over this past weekend to share with friends on New Year's Eve, but I also made them because I wanted to submit a recipe to a Whole Foods recipe contest that was for "your best recipe for pecans." Once I taste tested one of these cookies and knew they were pretty darn yummy, my hope of submitting this recipe to the contest was confirmed. Check out my submission here. :) The entries are narrowed down to two final recipes on January 10th. Wish me luck!

Ingredients:

-6 oz. (1 and 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

-1 cup packed light brown sugar

-1/2 cup sugar

-2 large eggs

-2 tsp. vanilla extract

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1 cup whole wheat flour

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1 tsp. ground cinnamon

-1 cup chopped pecans, toasted

-3/4 dried cranberries (e.g., Ocean Spray craisins)

-3/4 cup cinnamon flavored baking chips

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the chopped pecans on a baking sheet; toast in the 350 degree oven for 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove and set aside to let cool. Melt the butter in the microwave and allow it to cool slightly. Using a whisk, combine the butter and both sugars together in a large bowl. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Add this flour mixture to the butter and egg mixture and fold until just combined. Fold in the pecans, dried cranberries, and cinnamon chips until well-incorporated, but be careful not to overmix.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop cookie dough by the tablespoonful on baking sheet, placing at least 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 - 14 minutes. When the edges are just lightly golden brown, remove from oven. Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet for a couple minutes before removing to cooling rack. Once fully cooled, the cookies can be stored in an airtight container. Makes 30 cookies.

I was very pleased with the flavor and texture of these cookies. The combination of the three ingredients - pecans, dried cranberries, and cinnamon chips - may be a new favorite flavor combination of mine! I bet this would be a yummy combo for muffins too....

 This recipe is very versatile too. You could easily use all whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour instead of half of each like I did here. And if you're not a fan of any of the ingredients, substitute away! Different flavors of baking chips, other nuts, etc. could be interchanged without a problem.

Hope everyone's 2012 is off to a great start thus far!

This post is linked up to Taste and Tell Thursdays.

Baked Stuffed Apples

I had never made baked stuffed apples before this recipe even though I have often thought about making them... I'm glad I finally did since they were super yummy! 

This great recipe came from an awesome blog, Eat, Live, Run. Check it out! And her pictures are waaay better than mine so this recipe looks a lot more appetizing on her site. :)

Ingredients:

-4 large apples (the original recipe recommends Granny Smith; I actually used some Golden Delicious and Macintosh because that's what I had)

-1 and 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. - whatever you have!)

-1/2 cup apple juice (I used apple cider)

-1/4 cup pure maple syrup

-1 Tbsp. butter, melted

-1/3 cup dried cherries (I used craisins)

-1/3 cup roughly chopped walnuts (I used slivered almonds)

-1/4 cup cinnamon baking chips (this was my own addition - not in the original recipe)

-1/3 cup brown sugar, lightly packed (I think I used closer to 1/4 cup)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the pumpkin pie spice, dried cherries, walnuts, and brown sugar (and cinnamon chips if you decide to use them) in a bowl and set aside. 

Carefully core the apples, making sure not to cut through the bottom. Fully fill the cavity of each apple with the brown sugar mixture and place apples in a glass baking dish with the apple juice poured in the bottom. 

Mix together the maple syrup and melted butter and drizzle over top the apples. Cover with tin foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes or until the apples are tender.

Love this mixture of ingredients!!

Please forgive me not-so-great pictures. It's so hard to take good pictures when it's nighttime and no natural light to help out!

My overall appraisal of this recipe? Awesome! It was super easy and on the healthy side as far as desserts go. The tender, baked apples were incredibly flavorful and the filling inside was delicious! As I mentioned above, I substituted a few ingredients (craisins for dried cherries, almonds for walnuts, apple cider for apple juice), and I added one of my own (cinnamon chips). The flexibility of this recipe also makes it awesome. There's a lot of room to be creative here! Now, if you were looking to make this a little less healthy and a little more indulgent, I'd say that a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream would pair very well with the baked apples, wouldn't you? :)

Homemade Pumpkin Ice Cream

As promised, here's that homemade pumpkin ice cream recipe for you! It's the second recipe I've made using my new ice cream maker. And it was another success, just like the first one - peanut butter chip! :)

This recipe is from the book my sister gave me for my birthday, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Homemade Ice Cream (should I be concerned she gave this book to ME?).

Ingredients:

-1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin

-1 tsp. cinnamon

-3/4 tsp. ginger

-3/4 tsp. nutmeg

-3/4 cup sugar

-3 cups whole milk

-2 cups heavy cream

Instructions:

Place all ingredients in mixing bowl and mix until well blended. Cool mixture in fridge until it reaches 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Transfer mixture to your ice cream maker and follow instructions. I let my machine go for about 15 - 20 minutes, and then it was ready!

Of note, I used whole milk in this recipe, but the cookbook actually calls for half-and-half. The reason I used whole milk was that I already had it on hand (leftover from the peanut butter chip ice cream recipe!). I did a quick google search and decided that whole milk was a "close enough" substitution to half-and-half. Luckily my gamble was okay, and the ice cream was delicious! Next time, however, I'd probably try it with half-and-half just to see if it's any different.

Weeeeee, the ingredients go round and round...

Here's the ice cream right out of the machine. It's a softer texture at this point, which I love. Soooo good. I kinda wish I could eat the entire two quarts in one sitting...

After freezing it, it does become harder but the flavors are still amazing! I still have some in my freezer actually. I had some last night with some hot apple cider as a treat before bed. Talk about awesome fall flavors! The cinnamon and nutmeg really come through in this ice cream.

Isn't this a lovely cake? A couple weeks ago my coworkers surprised me with this cake to congratulate Mike and me. How sweet!! It was super delicious too.

Cake & ice cream:

The best combo!

By the way, do you remember when I talked about the shortage of pumpkin? Well, not to worry - my sister, mom, and future mother-in-law have all come to the rescue for me!! My sister gave me a big can of pumpkin she had in her pantry, and my mom and future mother-in-law both found some in stores near them and bought several cans for me. PHEW! Thank goodness (and thanks so much to them!). No more shortage of pumpkin for a while. I think I have the equivalent of about 12 15-oz. cans now! I've got some baking to do. :) 

Banana Cupcakes with Honey Cinnamon Frosting

Hi there! I made these cupcakes last week for a get-together with my fiancé's coworkers (I'm still getting used to saying fiancé!). The recipe is from my new Martha Stewart cupcake book, so I was quite excited to try it! Ya gotta love when a new recipe is a success. Read on to the end to see my full impressions! :)

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:

-3 ripe bananas (roughly 1.5 cups of mashed banana)

-2 cups cake flour*

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/2 tsp. baking powder

-3/4 tsp. salt

-3/4 tsp. cinnamon (I added this; it wasn't in the original recipe)

-1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

-3/4 cup sugar

-3 large eggs, separated

-1/2 cup sour cream (I used banana flavored yogurt instead)

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

*If you do not have cake flour, I recently discovered an awesome substitute for it! You just need all-purpose flour and cornstarch. Check it out here. ;-)

Frosting:

-2 and 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

-1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

-2 Tbsp. honey

-1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon (I probably added closer to 1/2 tsp.)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add the bananas, and beat to combine. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of the sour cream (or yogurt), and beating until just combined after each. Beat in vanilla.

In another mixing bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk egg whites to soft peaks; fold one-third of the whites into batter to lighten. Gently fold in remaining whites in two batches.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each 3/4 full. Bake until a cake tester inserted comes out clean, about 15 - 20 minutes. Transfer to cooling rack to cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored up to 3 days at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

This recipe made 12 cupcakes and 3 mini bundt cakes for me.

For the frosting, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat all ingredients until smooth. Use immediately, or refrigerate up to 5 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature and beat until smooth.

So as I said, this recipe was definitely a success. I would make it again! However, I have a couple points to share... 1) The cupcake itself was very yummy but it was rather muffin-like at the same time. The frosting is really what made these cupcakes, if you ask me. ;-) 2) I did not follow the cupcake recipe exactly... As you may have read earlier, I added cinnamon (which was a great choice, I think!) and I used banana yogurt instead of sour cream (also a good choice!).

What I did not do, though, was roast the bananas. You see, this recipe is actually for roasted banana cupcakes. Yep! I think that probably would have enhanced the banana flavor of these even more, which would be great. I did not have enough ripe bananas on hand to roast, however. What I always have on hand though is frozen ripe bananas, and that's what I used in this recipe. Whenever my bananas go ripe and I don't have enough free time to bake with them, I cut them up and freeze them to use later (just let them thaw before using them). So, sadly, I didn't get the full experience of making these cupcakes with roasted bananas. Guess I'll just have to make them again! Or, perhaps you can try making these with roasted bananas and let me know what you think. To roast the bananas, heat the oven to 400 degrees, and roast 3 whole (unpeeled!) bananas on a baking sheet for about 15 minutes. Let them cool before peeling.

Oh, and this honey cinnamon frosting? Amazing. Loved it. It's definitely what makes these cupcakes, in my opinion. The frosting recipe is certainly a keeper to use with other cake flavors! Perhaps with carrot cake instead of a traditional cream cheese frosting? YUM! I can taste it now.

K, friends, that's it! Hope everyone's week is off to a good start so far!

Baked Apricot Maple Chicken with Sauteed Apples and Roasted Butternut Squash

Is it just me or does the name of this recipe scream fall? Yay for autumn! It's officially just two days away. Come Friday, we'll be into my favorite season... Woohoo!

I made this dish last night to bring to a small dinner party with six people. It was the perfect amount for everyone! A few people had second helpings, and by the end, the entire dish was gone.... So, I guess it was yummy?! :)

I receive several cooking magazines and I love reading them. However, I will admit that I'm guilty of not making recipes from my magazines very often. :( I am making an effort to use recipes from my magazines more often, and this dish is an example of that effort! Of course, though, I did change the recipe... It's actually originally a recipe for pork, but I chose to use chicken instead because it was on sale at the grocery store! Pork was not on sale this week. I like to save money whenever I can; what can I say?

The dish is from the September 2011 issue of Cooking Light, and in there it's the recipe for "roasted pork tenderloin and maple-glazed apples" (for any of you Cooking Light subscribers!). I'll share the recipe as I made it though. Most of the measurements are approximate...I didn't really measure. Sorry! This is so not how I bake. I'm much more precise in that area. ;-) Oh, and I chose to just add the squash as a little extra since it went so well with all the other flavors.

Ingredients:

For chicken:

-approximately 2.5 - 3 lbs. chicken breasts

-approx. 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

-approx. 1 - 2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar

-approx. 3 Tbsp. pure maple syrup

-approx. 3 Tbsp. apricot jam (or another jam of your choice!)

-salt and pepper

-fresh rosemary, thyme, and/or other herbs

For apples:
-3 or 4 medium apples (I used macintosh)

-1 small yellow onion

-1 Tbsp. butter or margarine

-3 Tbsp. pure maple syrup

-1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

-salt and pepper

-cinnamon

For squash:

-1 lb. butternut or winter squash (I used a combination of these two types), peeled and chopped into 1/2 - 1" cubes

-extra virgin olive oil

-salt and pepper

-fresh rosemary

Instructions:

Prepare your chicken and squash first so they can be roasting while you're cooking the apples on the stovetop. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. For the chicken, I cut the breasts into 1/3 - 1/2 lb. pieces and put them in a 13 x 9 glass baking dish (I had sprayed it with cooking spray first). In a small dish, combine the olive oil, vinegar, maple syrup, jam, salt, and pepper (use your judgment with how much). Once the liquid mixture is combined thoroughly, spread it evenly with a spoon over top the chicken breasts. Sprinkle fresh rosemary and thyme (or other herbs!) on top of that. I probably used a couple teaspoons of each of those two herbs. Bake the chicken for about 20 - 25 minutes or until cooked thoroughly and not pink in the middle. Cooking time will vary depending on the size of the breasts you prepare. Just be careful not to overcook so the chicken doesn't become dry! 

For the squash, place it in a baking dish and sprinkle with olive oil and your chosen spices. Bake for at least 30 minutes - maybe up to 45 minutes. The cooking time will vary here depending on the size of the squash pieces you cut. Check the squash's doneness by sticking a fork in it; if it goes through easily, it's done! Oh, and by the way, quick tip on peeling a squash such as this one pictured below... These things are so darn annoying and difficult to peel! It can be made easier if you microwave the squash first. Pierce it with a knife in a few places, and for a smaller squash like this one, just microwave it for 2 or 3 minutes, let it cool for a bit, and then use your knife to carefully cut off the outside peel. It will be soooo much easier if you microwave it than not. I promise!

While those two items are baking, prepare your apples. I kept the skins on my apples, but if you'd like, you can remove the skins. Cut each apple into 8 or 10 slices. Chop your onion into small pieces. In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter or margarine and saute the onion for 7 or 8 minutes until it starts to soften. Once the onion is getting lightly browned, add the apples to the pan. After a minute or so, drizzle the maple syrup over top, along with the lemon juice, salt, pepper, and cinnamon. Continue to cook the apples over low to medium heat for 6 - 8 more minutes, or until they're softened to your liking.

When everything has cooked, serve it however you'd like! I ended up combining the squash and apples into one dish when we actually sat down to eat. We enjoyed this meal with some When Pigs Fly harvest bread and a delicious side dish of quinoa, sweet potatoes, and dried cranberries made by the lovely Jenn. What a perfect fall meal!!

Strawberry Banana Quinoa Breakfast Cereal

Quinoa cereal? Yes! I've heard about folks making quinoa for breakfast and have been wanting to try it... My most recent issue of Whole Living magazine inspired me to do so since it included a tasty looking quinoa cereal recipe.

What a delicious breakfast! It was one of those dishes that you taste and realize it's reeeeally yummy, and then you start to eat it fairly quickly because it's so yummy, all the while thinking that you probably shouldn't be eating that quickly, yet you keep taking bites as if someone's about to come take it away from you... And then finally, when the bowl is two-thirds of the way gone, you slow down for just a minute or two...and then gobble up the rest. Well, maybe that doesn't happen to you. But that's what happened to me with this delicious bowl of strawberry banana quinoa breakfast cereal.

So, how do you make this cereal? Here you go!

Bring 1 and 1/2 cups of milk (I used 1%) to a boil in a saucepan on the stove, and add in 1/2 cup of quinoa (I used white quinoa). Cook until all the liquid is absorbed (about 14 minutes). Remove from heat and mix in your fruits of choice (the magazine suggested raspberries and bananas). I added about 1/3 cup of strawberries (mine were fresh ones that I had frozen and then thawed, so they were a bit liquid-y), and about 1/4 cup of sliced banana. I also sprinkled a generous dash of cinnamon on top (I love me my cinnamon!!), and a slight drizzle of maple syrup (pure VT maple syrup - it's gotta be the real stuff, friends!). Mix everything together, and enjoy!!

I love how the strawberry juice made it a pretty pink color!

I hope you try this for a unique twist on a healthy breakfast. You'll be glad you did!