Banana Sour Cream Bread

If you are like me, you have your favorite recipe for the basic foods and you rarely go searching for anything different because why change something that's just fine, right?  We had a neighbor bring us some banana bread when I had my last baby and she mentioned that the recipe called for sour cream.  The bread was so moist and delicious I thought maybe I should try and find a recipe like that.  Well, I found one and I love it!

I use whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose and I cut the sugar to 1 cup because it was really sweet.  Also, you could easily replace the sour cream with nonfat plain yogurt.  But here's the original recipe.  The recipe was for four loaves so I cut it in half.  This recipe makes two loaves.

Banana Sour Cream Bread
6 T butter, soft
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 small eggs
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
*2/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional, I don't like nuts in bread)
*cinnamon-sugar mixture (2 T white sugar + 1/2 tsp cinnamon)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease two 7x3 inch loaf pans.  Then sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mixture around bottom and sides of pan.  This is optional, but makes it delicious!

Sift together in small bowl flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt.  In larger bowl, cream together butter and sugar.  Then add eggs, bananas, sour cream and vanilla and mix well.  Add flour mix to banana mix and stir until just combined.  Fold in nuts if using them.

Divide into the prepared pans and back for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

--------This recipe came from Allrecipes.com, and the picture was from Google Images.-------

Quinoa Fried Rice

This is a super easy recipe and for some reason my kids LOVE quinoa and they eat this up without even picking around the vegetables.  All three of them.  I love it too and it's super easy (except that you have to chop a bunch of veggies, I guess).

I got this picture on Google Images because I've given up on trying to be a food photographer :)  This is basically what mine looks like, though.

Quinoa Fried Rice

1 cup dry quinoa
2 cups water
2 tsp soy sauce
any veggies you want, I use:
carrots
broccoli
zucchini
red pepper
garlic
onion (white or green)
peas
garlic salt and pepper to taste

Rinse quinoa, then add water and quinoa to a medium pot.  Bring to boil and cook on medium for 15 minutes or until liquid is gone (like rice).

Meanwhile, chop veggies small and saute with olive oil in a wok or large skillet.  Start with carrots first since they take a little longer, then add everything else.  Season with garlic salt and pepper (or however you like to season your veggies).  When veggies are cooked and quinoa is done, add quinoa to veggie skillet.  Then add soy sauce (you don't need a lot, but you can add more if you want) and stir.

Quinoa is a complete protein so this is a good vegetarian dish, but it would also be good with some grilled teriyaki chicken or something.