Yummy Banana Bread!

It's been so cold, rainy, and dreary here recently that it's put me in the baking mood.  If I can't get out, I'll just get in the kitchen!  My husband loves our banana bread recipe and he has a huge meeting on Wednesday at work, so Hadley and I decided to make him some "lucky banana bread" for the occasion.

You'll need:
2 c. flour
3/4 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. sugar
1/4 c. butter, softened
2 large eggs
3 bananas, mashed*
1/3 c. vanilla yogurt**
1 t. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray your loaf pan with cooking spray (to keep it from sticking!)

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.

3. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl and mix (we use our mixer) until well blended.



4. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.



5. Add bananas, vanilla yogurt, and vanilla extract.  Beat until blended.



6. Add flour mixture and mix on low speed until just moist.



7. Pour batter into loaf pan and back for 1 hour.  Let cool before attempting to get it out of the pan.



8. Enjoy!



*We always seem to have leftover bananas that are going to go bad, so I just toss them in the freezer until we make banana bread.  I've made this bread both ways: regular bananas and frozen bananas, and I think the frozen ones work better.  They are mushier and juicier!



** You can also use plain yogurt, but I think the vanilla gives it a little extra flavor!

This is just a classic banana bread recipe, but you can always add things (chocolate chips, anyone?!) to make it different.  What's your favorite recipe?  I'm always looking for new things to make!

Apple Pie, Oh My!

I promised Hadley when we were apple pickin' Saturday that we could make an apple pie this week with some of the apples from our peck!  Tuesday night, I made the dough for the crust and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  Making homemade crust is the longest part of the process so having that already done was nice!  I also pre-sliced/peeled 8 cups of apples.

After Griffin went down for his morning nap, Hadley and I got to baking!

First, we rolled out our pie crust.  (*Before I took Griffin to bed, I set the dough out to start coming to room temperature.  It sat for about 20 minutes.)  We also rolled out the pie crust for the top of the pie.



Then we put the pie crust in the pie plate.  Hadley did such a good job making sure the pie crust didn't have any air bubbles and sat well on the edges of the plate.  Her favorite part was taking the excess pie crust off the top!

We set the pie crust out of the way and started mixing our ingredients.  Hadley has just recently started to enjoy "helping" me cook and she wants to do everything by herself.

We whisked all the dry ingredients together.  I always tell her to "go slow" so she won't toss the ingredients out of the bowl.  She told me I could have a turn and I whisked quickly to make sure they were well mixed and she said, "Mommy!  You have to do it slowly!"

Once our ingredients were mixed, we poured them on top of our apples.  We coated the apples with lots of sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg!  We then heaped the apples into the middle of the pie crust.

Once the apples were in the pie crust, we put the top crust on, scored it with a knife in a few places, and Hadley fluted the edges.  She was taking her job very seriously.

When it was time to pop it in the oven, I snapped a picture of my girl and her very first homemade pie!  It had to bake for about an hour and every 10 minutes or so, she would go over to the oven to check on it.  Sweet girl!

The finished product!  A delicious, from-scratch, apple pie made from apples that Hadley picked herself.  We had so much fun baking together and I think her pie turned out beautiful! (And delicious!)