Half Assed Kitchen

Sour cream chocolate chip banana bread

We've done a couple versions of banana bread here on Half Assed Kitchen, most slightly adapting others' recipes. We liked 'em. But we didn't love them like we knew we should. Until the sour cream chocolate chip banana bread. This, folks, is the moistest, yummiest banana bread-that-almost-tastes-like-cake ever.

Rating: 3/4 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it (makes two loaves)

2 cups sugar

1 cup butter or margarine

3 eggs

4 ripe bananas (the more ripe the better)

1/2 cup sour cream or sour cream substitute

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons baking soda

2-3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly spray two loaf pans with canola oil.

Cream together sugar and eggs using beaters or stand mixer. Add eggs, sour cream, vanilla, and bananas and mix until well combined.

Add dry ingredients (flours, salt, and baking soda). Mix thoroughly. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour into pans.

Bake for 1 hour (or so, start checking at 50 minutes for doneness by inserting toothpick into center of banana bread loaves).

Serve warm.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Edamame dip

Here's another recipe for the Pretty Darn Healthy And Also Extremely Delicious file. We got this from Epicurious and made a few, tiny tweaks. It's like guacamole, but with legs. And protein-packed. Give this one a shot served with sweet potato chips. Yum!

Rating: 1/4 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

2 cups shelled edamame (from the frozen food section of your grocery store)

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 clove garlic (optional)

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoons black pepper

3 Tablespoons olive oil

3 Tablespoons water (or slightly more)

Cook edamame in a bowl filled with water and placed in the microwave for 1 to 2 minutes. Drain. Add edamame and all other ingredients into food processor or blender.

Process until mostly smooth. You may need to add more liquid if the dip is too thick.

Serve warm with sweet potato chips.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Kale chips

We know every blogger and his brother has written about kale chips. They're easy, tasty, and very good for you. But none of the posts we've read have warned of the grave kale-over-baking danger. Which is really quite serious. It leads to nasty, bitter chips of horror that may as well be sheets of ash lying on your tongue for how tasty they are.

We're telling you...make these. Do. But don't cook them for more than 10 minutes before you check. And check often afterward--every two or three minutes. You want to catch them just after they've turned crisp, but before they've burned. And it can happen quickly.

Rating: 1/4 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

1 bunch kale (any variety will do), stems removed and leaves torn into bite-sized pieces

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Sea salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wash kale and dry thoroughly. A salad spinner works great for this. Do not skimp on the spins. If drying with towels, try hard to soak up all the water.

In a large bowl, toss kale with olive oil and salt. Spread in a single layer across two cookie sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes. Check to see if leaves are crisp. If so, remove immediately. If not, continue to bake, checking every 2 to 3 minutes.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Crepes

What kind of a half assed blog would we be if we didn't bring you crepes? They're the simplest of simple, yet turn whatever you're cooking into something French and délicieux. Sprinkle powered sugar over them, fill with ham, cheese, and mushrooms or Nutella and bananas. The options are endless.

Rating: 1/4 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

1 cup flour

2 large eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 teaspoon salt

Butter for pan

Whisk together flour, eggs, milk, and salt. Heat skillet (or crepe pan if you happen to have one) over medium heat. (Do not overheat or batter will not spread evenly.) Melt butter in hot pan.

Batter should be thinner than pancake batter, but thicker than broth. Scoop batter into warm pan, tilt to make sure batter covers entire bottom of pan.

Cook until golden brown, then flip and cook other side.

Serve warm with your choice of toppings/fillings.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

3-seed banana date muffins

It's the new year, so of course we're looking for healthy snacks. Something we can eat that isn't butter laden or made entirely of white flour and sugar. These muffins caught our eye when perusing the latest Sunset issue. And, even though the recipe required that we purchase a few ingredients we didn't have: dates and poppy seeds, it was so worth it.

In the magazine, these are called Thousand Seed Banana Date Muffins. To be completely up front, there are only 4 kinds of seeds and we left out one of them. We also adjusted the sugar (adding less than the recipe called for because they seemed too sweet on the first go round) and baking for slightly less time than the recipe calls for.

In addition, we skipped about a billion steps and saved a whole lot of time and dirty dishes. And you know what, the muffins were still awesome.

Maybe we're just kidding ourselves, but we feel like we're eating something decent when we pop these babies into our mouths. We hope you like them, too.

Rating: 3/4 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

1/4 cup each sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and sunflower seeds (or another seed you like)

1/2 cup packed pitted dates

1 ripe banana, mashed

1/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt

2 Tablespoons canola oil

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (if you don't have both, just make up the difference with the other)

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup flaxseed meal

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (which you should all have in your cupboards because it's incredible)

Dried fruit would be a nice addition, too

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 12 muffin cups. Mix seeds in a small bowl.

Whirl dates with 1/2 cup water in food processor or blender.

Add all ingredients except about 3 Tablespoons of the seed blend. Mix well.

Scoop batter into muffin tins (fill them quite full). Then sprinkle tops with remaining seeds.

Bake 20 minutes, or until just firm to touch and edges are golden.

These are great served warm.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Kettle corn

 

Sweet, salty, and crunchy. What's not to love about Kettle Corn? Except maybe it's price tag of $3 to $4 a bag! We're here to tell you a secret: you can make it for about thirty cents. Seriously. And it's just as good as the store (or fair) bought stuff.

It's absurdly simple. But it burns easily. So watch it like a hawk.

Rating: 1/4 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil

1/4 cup sugar (white makes classic kettle corn, while we've heard that brown gives you something more along the lines of caramel corn)

1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels

Salt

In a large saucepan, heat oil, sugar, and popcorn over medium heat (do not go to a much higher temp than this, or sugary smoke will fill your kitchen).

Continually swirl pan around, shake it, whatever, just keep it moving while kernels pop. When the popping slows, immediately remove pan from heat and dump popcorn into a bowl (several kernels will remain unpopped, but in our experience, it's waste a few kernels, or burn the whole kit and kaboodle).

Add salt right away.

Let cool, at least slightly, and dig in.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

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Zucchini Bread

Mmmm. Zucchini bread. We're not really sure what else to say about it. It's simple. It's yummy. We can pretend it's healthy because of all the zucchini.

This recipe makes a nice, moist loaf. (Except that we're not at all sure the words moist and loaf should ever be used in the same sentence).

Rating: 3/4 assed (Grating, blerg!)

Here's what you need and how you do it

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup apple sauce

1/2 cup canola oil

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

3 cups zucchini, grated

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix sugars, applesauce and canola oil. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir well. Add flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Once all is mixed, fold in zucchini.

Pour into two lightly greased loaf pans. Bake for 30 minutes, or until toothpick stuck in center of loaves comes out clean.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Refrigerator pickles

  
 

Who says Facebook is nothing but a time suck? We got this little gem of a recipe from our FB friend Sassy Molassy, who comes from sweet tea country, and really knows her pickling. Pickling, to be honest, has always scared us--what, with the jars and the lids and the bath canner. But dill makes us swoon. So when we saw Sassy's recipe for Refrigerator Pickles, we had to try it.

It took us all of ten minutes to prepare and stash in the fridge. Two days later, we took them out and bit into our first zippy, homemade pickle. We feel accomplished! Ready to take on the world now that we know how to brine these babies.

You can do it too!

Rating: 1/4 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

3 to 4 large cucumbers, washed and sliced lengthwise, but not peeled

1 cup (or so) fresh dill

3 cups water

1 cup white vinegar

1/8 cup salt

In a large plastic (or preferably glass container), layer cucumbers and dill.

In a saucepan, heat water, vinegar and salt to bowling. Stir to make sure salt is dissolved. Pour over cucumbers and dill. Let sit until it reaches room temperature, then cover and place in the fridge. Will store up to two weeks.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Orange chocolate chip muffins

We lovingly adapted stole this recipe from the amazing blog White on Rice Couple. Their version, of course, was made with blood oranges and chocolate chunks, but having only Minneolas and Trader Joes semisweet chips in the house, we decided to make due.

We're glad we did. These muffins are moist and zippy and the citrusy orange perfectly counterbalances the creamy chocolate. This recipe makes only a dozen muffins, so you might want to consider doubling it.

Also, we're trying something new with this post and including more photos of our process. Please let us know what you think. Do you enjoy the photography? Is it helpful? Or cluttery and tiresome?

Rating: 3/4 assed (the zesting almost killed us)

Here's what you need and how you do it

1- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Grated zest of three oranges

1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine, melted

2/3 cup orange juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1 cup chocolate chips, or more to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray muffin tins with canola oil or grease with margarine or shortening.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and orange zest.

 
Combine melted butter, orange juice, vanilla and eggs.

Fold into dry mixture until combined, but do not overmix.

 

Add chocolate chips.

Fill muffin tins full.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until lightly brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

   

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.

Oatmeal applesauce bread

 

We were seriously in the mood for some quick bread the other day. We didn't want anything overly sweet or fat laden. So we whipped up oatmeal applesauce bread. Boy, were we glad we did. It was delicious and hearty and not too sugary. And it was polished off in less than 12 hours. We're considering baking another batch sooner rather than later.

Feel free to experiment. You could easily dump in dried fruit and nuts and make the bread that much more faboo.

Rating: Truly 1/2 assed

Here's what you need and how you do it

1 cup applesauce

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup butter or margarine (at room temperature)

1-1/2 cups flour (white or whole wheat)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup oats

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease one loaf pan.

Mix applesauce, sugars and margarine together. In separate bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. Stir together applesauce and flour mixtures. Add eggs, oats and vanilla and stir to combine.

Pour into loaf pan. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean.

Serve warm with butter.

For a printable version of this recipe, click here.