Milk Chocolate Banana Bread

Time for some more food, right?

Ahh, banana bread.  Classic, tasty and always seasonal.  

I love banana bread and I've tried lots of different recipes.  Some healthy with whole wheat flour, some not so healthy and loaded with chocolate chips.  I've found quite a few that I like, but I always come back to the one I'm sharing with you today.  It was probably the first banana bread recipe I ever made.  My mom found it in a newspaper article, I think.  I wish I could site the source correctly, but we've used it for so long, that it's now just one of those standards in my family's household.

I think my sister might have come up with the name--Milk Chocolate Banana Bread.  Doesn't that just sound delish?  This is definitely not one of those "healthy" banana bread recipes.  But, come on, isn't all banana bread at least a little healthy?  That's what I tell myself when I eat half a loaf for breakfast.  

Milk Chocolate Banana Bread

3 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 ripe, mashed bananas
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Whisk eggs, oil, sugars, salt and bananas.  Combine flour and baking powder with fork in separate bowl.  Add flour mixture to egg mixture, along with chocolate chips.  Don't overmix.  Bake in an 8 x 4 loaf pan at 350 degrees for about an hour.  It should be a deep golden brown and a toothpick should come out clean.  My loaves usually take a little longer than an hour. 

Roasted Beet Salad

Surprise!  Bonus post this week!  Yeah that’s right. Just thank the hubby who is at a meeting, the girls who are sleeping and the DEElicious dinner I made tonight that I shall now share with the world {read: you 10 or so readers.}

Look at those colors! And it’s a sooc shot!

So, the other day I received beautiful purple beets in my organic produce co-op crate.  It thought, well what in the heck am I going to do with these?  I’ve literally never, ever cooked beets in my entire life.

So that’s where Google came into the picture. (Pretty sure my family would have starved before the internet.) 

I found this recipe for a beet salad and adapted it slightly.

Ingredients:

Chicken breast

Mixed baby greens

Purple and gold beets

Lemon

lemon pepper

olive oil

feta cheese

salt and pepper

First, cut the stems off the beets, wash and place on aluminum foil.  Drizzle olive oil over the beets and sprinkle with salt.  Completely wrap the beets and place on your grill or in your oven (at about 350*). Check beets after about 20 minutes and remove when tender.

While the beets are roasting, sprinkle the chicken breast with lemon pepper and place on the grill.

When beets are done let them cool for a bit and when they are not too hot to handle, remove the skins.  Chop into quarters.

Place greens, chopped beets, and sliced grilled chicken into a bowl.  Squeeze lemon juice from a fresh lemon over the salad, drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle some salt and crumble the feta cheese on top.

It is SO.SO good.  The tanginess of the feta cheese along with the sweet, roasted flavor of the beets is YUM.  (almost said YUM-O, shoot me I am NOT Rachael Ray.)

Another bonus?  It’s healthy.  Can’t beat that!  Apparently beets are insanely good for you.