Banana Date Smoothie

With this unseasonably warm weather we've been experiencing lately in New England, I've been craving refreshing smoothies. However, I'm not quite ready for berry-flavored smoothies yet. Thankfully there are a gazillion other smoothie combinations out there though! So when I stumbled upon this banana date smoothie the other day from Steph's Bite by Bite, I immediately pinned it. And since then, it's been on my mind quite a bit (don't get jealous, Mike!!). And this past Tuesday I finally got around to making it. And then I made another one on Wednesday. Annnnd, you guessed it. I made another one today, Thursday. Uh huh. It's gooood. 

As I mentioned earlier, I first saw this recipe on the lovely blog, Steph's Bite by Bite. The proportions and ingredients listed below are what I used and are just slightly modified from the original recipe. This makes one serving.

Ingredients:

-1 medium to large banana, frozen

-1/4 cup dry regular oats

-3 pitted dates, chopped/sliced

-1/2 cup milk (I used organic 1%)

Instructions:

Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend until everything's mixed together and fairly smooth.

Of note, the original recipe does call for a few ice cubes. Mine turned out plenty cold (for my liking) with just the frozen banana and cold milk. But feel free to add ice cubes if you'd like! It may "bulk" up the smoothie a bit too, if you add the ice.

A trick to make this easier? Slice your bananas before freezing them. If you have a super duper fancy blender you may be able to just throw a whole frozen banana in there, but my blender isn't that great so it works better for me if I slice the bananas before I freeze them. I also chopped up the dates into smaller pieces before adding them to the blender.

On one of the past three days I made this smoothie I was on the run, going from one thing to another. So, I put it in a handy dandy little to-go cup that works great for smoothies and shakes!

Another picture of ingredients in the blender; this was smoothie day #3.

If you need a reminder about how good dates are for you, read all about them here. I looove dates! If you're a regular reader, you already know this. I've mentioned my obsession with dates when I've baked with them (recently with maple date scones and a little while back with maple date bars). And I feel like every time I make something with dates, I talk about how obsessed with them I am. Guess that really just confirms the obsession!!

After blending...bubbles!

Yep, I drank my smoothie out of a wine glass. :)

If you love smoothies, especially healthy ones, go make this one! Deeeelicious.

Maple Date Scones

Maple and dates. A winning combination. You've seen me use this combination before in the form of my maple date bars, which I looooved. And I'm generally just obsessed with dates, and I first admitted my obsession back when I made a batch of tasty layered oatmeal date bars. But I have yet to bake with maple and dates in scone form....until today, that is! I recently bought buttermilk at the store to make some Irish soda bread later this week, but I knew I wouldn't need the whole container of buttermilk so I got to thinking about what else I could make with it. Scones!! Obviously. Buttermilk is such a common ingredient in scone recipes. So, I turned to one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, The Best of Cooking Light, to see which scone recipes I could find that looked good and matched ingredients that I had on hand. And that's how I came to make these delicious maple date scones!

Of note, the recipe calls for 2 cups of all-purpose flour, but I decided to add 1 cup of AP flour and 1 cup of white whole wheat flour. The scones feel a bit healthier that way, ya know? ;) The recipe below is what I followed when I made these. It really doesn't differ much from the original, but you can read the original recipe here if you'd like. The original actually calls for 1% milk, but as you already know, I chose to use buttermilk.

Ingredients:

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1 cup white whole wheat flour

-1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

-1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder

-1/2 tsp. baking soda

-1/4 tsp. salt

-1/3 cup (5 and 1/3 Tbsp.) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

-1/2 cup chopped, pitted dates

-1/2 cup buttermilk

-3 Tbsp. maple syrup (I used the good stuff! the real thing from VT ;))

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine the dry ingredients (flours through salt) in a large bowl; cut in the pieces of butter with a pastry cutter, fork, or two knives until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Randomly, I decided to use a whisk and it worked great to cut the butter into the flour mixture! Add the dates; toss well. Combine the buttermilk and syrup. Add to the flour mixture and stir well, until the entire mixture is moistened.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface; knead 4 or 5 times. Pat dough into an 8-inch circle and place on a cooking sheet that's sprayed with cooking spray or lined with parchment paper. Score the dough with a knife, "cutting" it into 8 wedges. Do not cut all the way through the dough. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve warm with butter/margarine, jam/jelly, or plain! :)

I think I've mentioned this on the blog before, but a great tip for cutting up dates is to spray your knife with cooking spray first. Since dates are so sticky, this will prevent them from sticking to the knife! It works great.

The maple and date combination was yet again, not a disappointment! It was quite yummy.

These scones were incredibly easy to put together too, which was nice. I love when all ingredients can be mixed in one bowl.

I just had to taste test one, of course! I was able to hold off until after I took all my pictures, but then I dug right in. I enjoyed mine warm with a little bit of butter. Sooo good. Scones are such a comfort food for me. And this particular recipe came out with just the right amount of "flaky-ness" that scones should have, in my opinion. But they weren't dry in any way, and that's really important to me when it comes to scones.

If you haven't yet baked with the combo of maple and dates, I highly recommend that you do. Soon!

Maple Date Bars

There are certain recipes that I look at and immediately know that I have to make them. This recipe for maple date bars was one of those. I first saw this recipe about a month ago in an e-newsletter I receive from My Recipes. I saved it on one of my Pinterest boards so I could easily locate it whenever I decided to make it. This past weekend was that time...and it was a happy time. :) Boy are these bars tasty! I love dates (I talked about my love of dates back when I made these layered oatmeal date bars. That was this past January and I hadn't baked with dates since then! Not good. It was about time they were incorporated into a delicious creation again...welcome, maple date bars! These are a Cooking Light recipe too (so less guilt!!).

Ingredients:

-1 and 3/4 cup finely chopped pitted dates

-3/4 cup water

-1/3 cup pure maple syrup

-1 tsp. grated lemon rind (I actually omitted this because I didn't realize I didn't have lemon on hand)

-2/3 cup sugar

-1/2 cup butter, softened

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1 cup regular oats

-1/4 tsp. baking soda

-1/4 tsp. salt

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine dates, water, and maple syrup in heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil; cook for 12 minutes or until most of the liquid has been absorbed, stirring frequently. Stir in rind; cool completely.

Beat butter and sugar together in mixing bowl on medium speed. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture (mixture will be crumbly). Firmly press two cups of the flour mixture into the bottom of a greased 13 x 9 baking pan. Spread the cooled date mixture evenly over the bottom layer, and then sprinkle the remaining flour mixture on top. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until the top is lightly golden brown. Cool completely in pan before cutting. Store bars wrapped individually in an airtight container or place between layers of wax or parchment paper in an airtight container.

Overall these bars were suuuper simple to make. The most time consuming part was cooking the dates on the stove, but that definitely wasn't difficult. Truly, these were very easy to make, and they got rave reviews! I made them for a beer tasting event Mike was hosting. Friends who come to his beer tastings have quite the refined palates, so if they liked them, they've got to be good, right?! ;)

Apple Date Walnut Muffins and Mini Loaves

I love muffins. They definitely fall under the umbrella of "comfort food" for me. Eating a muffin baked to perfection is such an enjoyable experience. Pair it with a great cup of coffee and I'm even happier. :) One of my favorite quotes is "There's nothing bigger than the little things." Muffins are one of those "little things" in my book!

Okay, enough rambling from me. Onto the recipe! I semi-followed a recipe in this fun cupcake book that my mom gave me for Christmas. Thanks, Mom!

Yes, it is a cupcake book, but it has some muffin recipes in it too! The original recipe was for "fruity lunch box muffins" (they contained berries), but there was a variation on the page for "apple and golden raisin muffins" and that's what I semi-followed. I still changed the recipe slightly though because that's just what I do! 

Here are the ingredients and instructions I followed to make my apple date walnut muffins:

-3/4 cup all-purpose flour
-1/2 cup whole wheat flour
-2/3 cup regular oats
-2 tsp. baking powder
-1/3 cup sugar
-1 tsp. cinnamon
-2 eggs
-6 oz. yogurt (I used Yoplait apple pie flavor, perhaps it enhanced the apple flavor in the muffins ;-))
-3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
-3 Tbsp. melted butter
-1 Tbsp. maple syrup
-2 tsp. vanilla
-1 cup chopped apple (macintosh)
-2/3 cup chopped dates
-1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin pan with liners or grease the pan. Mix the flour, oats, baking powder, sugar, and cinnamon with a whisk in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, yogurt, oil, melted butter, maple syrup, and vanilla with a spoon; once incorporated, add to the flour mixture and stir until thoroughly combined (but do not over mix). Mix in the chopped apple, dates, and walnuts.

Fill muffin cups 3/4 of the way full, and bake for approximately 15 minutes (oven times may vary, as always!). Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Quite a few additions that I made were not in the original recipe; those included the cinnamon, maple syrup, dates, and walnuts. I love changing recipes a little bit to make them my own. :)

This recipe made 12 muffins and 4 mini loaves for me.

See this cute little mini loaf pan below? I LOVE this pan! I used it for the first time with this recipe, and it was so great. The loaves baked really evenly and they were really easy to remove from the pan. Yay! I'd highly recommend it. I bought mine at Crate and Barrel. I've used it one other time since this recipe, and it worked great that time too.

Like my new towel with all the baking related words on it? So fun! It was another gift from my mom. :)

There's the goodness on the inside. :)

I liked that these muffins were light and airy, yet hearty too, thanks to the additions of apples, dates, oatmeal, and walnuts. Healthy healthy, friends! Love it.

Talk to you again soon!

Layered Oatmeal Date Bars

I have a confession to make. I have become obsessed with dates. Noooo, not the romantic kind (although that kind of date is obviously nice too! haha). I am obsessed with dates, the fruit! For the last couple months they have been a staple in my kitchen. In fact, I've been buying them in bulk at BJ's because I have been eating them so much! Did you know that dates are packed with all sorts of good nutritional value? Some highlights include that they're high in fiber, low in fat, high in potassium, easily digested, and are a great source antioxidants...and due to all these great qualities, they may help fight cancer, lower blood pressure, and lower the risk of digestive disorders. However, they are slightly high in calories (not too bad though), so be sure to enjoy them in moderation! You can read more about the nutritional benefits of dates here and here. Of note, I just noticed that the first of those two sites says that dates are low in calories, but the second one says they're high in calories. One date is about 25 calories or so...for a low-calorie, energy boosting snack, you can definitely enjoy four or five dates. Just don't eat 15 or 20 at a time, I guess!!

Phew! I didn't mean for that to be a science or nutrition lesson. :-P

Back to business...the bottom line is that I am lovin' dates these days! Lately, I've mainly been eating them as a snack at work or for a burst of energy before heading out for a run. However, I recently thought to myself, I really should bake some sort of delicious treat with dates! So I did. ;-)

I don't remember how I came across this recipe for date bars (I actually wasn't on the hunt for a date-related baking recipe at the time), but I'm glad I found it! You can check out this "keeper" of a recipe here on a blog called "Miss Anthropist's Kitchen."

All in all, this was a pretty simple recipe. The most time consuming part was chopping the dates. If you look at the recipe, you'll notice that it calls for 3/4 pound of pitted dates. What does that mean in terms of typical baking measurements?! Well, I do not own a kitchen scale, so I just took a guess! I made this recipe with two cups of chopped dates, and it seemed to work out perfectly. The huge bag of dates from BJ's that I have is 40 ounces, which is 2.5 pounds, so I chopped up what I estimated to be about 1/3 of the bag....or slightly more than 3/4 pound. And that ended up being the equivalent of two cups after I chopped them. Maybe not the most scientific method, but it worked!

It's time for the part when you can take a break from reading my rambling and look at some pictures. :)

DATES! How I love thee.

Roughly two cups of chopped dates are in that bowl...

Time to cook them on the stove! This was what they looked like when they began cooking.

And here they are, ready to go in the baking dish....much "mushier" than when they began cooking.

Layer of dry/crumbly ingredients on the bottom...

Next comes the layer of the date mixture!

Evenly spread. :)

And finally, one more layer of the dry/crumbly mixture.

In the oven! My photo wasn't exactly centered. Whenever I open the oven to take a picture, I make it quick and clearly don't pay close attention to whether my item is centered!

The finished product, golden brown on top.

Check out those layers!

Here's a nice close-up view of the layers!

A few thoughts on these layered oatmeal date bars. 1) They're delicious and nutritious! Sure, there are a few ingredients in them that aren't the best for you, but I think they're much more of a guilt-free dessert than many other bars out there!  2) The date layer is the middle is SO tasty...and the top and bottom layers are darn good too! At first, I was afraid that the crumbly mixture was going to be too dry and crumbly. As it turns out, it wasn't. However, next time I make these, I think I'll try experimenting with putting less flour in the recipe (maybe just 1 cup instead of 1.5 cups?). I think I'd keep the quantity of oats the same though.  3) I did not use any applesauce in place of some of the butter, like "Miss Anthropist" did. Maybe next time! I did use half all-purpose and half whole wheat flour though. Also, I added about two tablespoons of brown sugar early on when the dates were cooking on the stove. Then, when they only had a couple more minutes to go, I added a couple tablespoons of flour to thicken the mixture. 4) I greased my baking pan. The recipe doesn't explicitly say to do that, but I decided to...not sure that the bars would have stuck if I did not grease the pan, but they definitely didn't stick after I greased it, so I say go ahead and grease the pan - just lightly is fine.  5) I have had at least one of these bars every day since I made them... And I think I'll be continuing my love affair with dates into the future. ;-)

So long for now from the Barbershop!