Baked Sweet Potato Fries

I was never a sweet potato person growing up.  My dad detests them, so we only had them on Thanksgiving.  We make them in a casserole with brown sugar and marshmallows melted on top- and it never really appealed to me.  

Fast forward to a few months ago, and we were given sweet potato fries by accident instead of tater tots while out at dinner.  I was hungry and they're in french fry shape so there's really no arguing with trying them, and I found out how very delicious they are.  

They were on sale at our grocery store, so I figured it couldn't be that much more complicated than baking potato chips.  Turns out it's easy and delicious and it's actually fairly healthy.

Banana Muffins!

Okay so I totally love banana bread, but I never have a whole bunch of brown bananas.  I mean they sell them when they're practically lime green still, and Joe eats them like it's a contest, so I'm lucky if there are any left by the time they get to the point of brown spotting that I like them.  But I often get one  or two very sad bananas left behind.  My favorite recipe from my friend Beth calls for 4-5 bananas.

So I made some adjustments and have a recipe for 2 bananas that makes 6 muffins or one small loaf.
It's perfect!
The full recipe is at the bottom.

Ingredients:

flour (all-purpose or bread)
baking soda
cinnamon
allspice
salt
sugar of your choice
1 egg
applesauce OR vegetable oil
bananas
sour cream
vanilla extract

The Steps:

Mix your dry ingredients in a small bowl:
1/2 + 1/3 cup of flour- bread flour makes it a little loftier, but all-purpose is just as delicious- just use what you have.  Add a dash of salt, and as much spices as you like.  I put in a lot of cinnamon and allspice because they're my favorite.
Set this aside.

Mix 1 egg and 1/2 a cup of sugar.  I prefer brown sugar, but use white sugar or honey depending on what I have around.

Add 1/4 cup of applesauce or 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil.  I prefer the applesauce as it's healthier and less greasy feeling, but -again- use what you got.

Now add your bananas, 2 hefty dollops of sour cream, and a dash of vanilla. You can go generous on your 'measurements' of these things.

Sometimes I just use a potato masher in the mixing bowl and make my life easier.  Especially when my banana goes from brown to black and leaky before I get around to bread making.  If they're soft and ripe you could squish them with the side of your spoon.

Slowly stir in your bowl of dry ingredients.
Add nuts if you're into that kind of thing.

Pour into your pan/muffin tin, which you should grease and flour (I use Pam spray) or put in those handy paper liners.

don't worry about those banana chunks- they'll be delicious.

Bake!  About 30 minutes at 350.

I think bread flour was the source of the extra fluffiness in this batch. 

 mmm...   melted butter.

The Full Recipe:


1/2 + 1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon (at least)
1/4 tsp allspice
dash of salt
1/2 cup sugar of your choice
1 egg
1/4 applesauce OR 3 TB of vegetable oil
2 bananas
2 TB sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Set oven to 350.  Grease and flour your pan.

In a small bowl mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt.  Use cinammon and allspice to your taste- I like a lot but make it how you want it.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl mix egg and sugar.  I prefer brown sugar, but white or even honey can work fine.  Stir in applesauce or vegetable oil.  Add mashed bananas, sour cream, and vanilla, mix well.  Mix in the flour in increments, add nuts if you like them.  Pour into pan and bake about 30 minutes until browned or knife comes out with a thin coating of batter on it.

Filet Mignon with Creamy Goat Cheese Sauce

So Joe and I are pretty poor.  I mean we pretend we're not because we get "paid" our loan overpayments at the start of each semester so we can do things like eat and pay rent.  Now that things like my impending graduation and the necessary period of at least two months between me graduating and taking the NCLEX, and then between taking it and getting my scores so I can apply for jobs are becoming more of a reality we're trying to be a little more budget-conscious.  But then again, you still have to celebrate now and then!

I took a standardized test yesterday morning that I did quite well on (yay!) and then had our syllabus day for one of my summer courses and realized that apparently that is our ONLY day of class other than presentation days (double yay!) and that I have 13 days before I even have to go back to school for anything (triple yay!) so I was in a very good mood.  I texted Joe on the way home to grab some cans Old Style at the store because it is a day for day drinking and corn hole (a.k.a. Bags, as they call it in IL)!  But that's for another post...

After some lazy afternoon drinking, we headed over to Trader Joe's to pick up some groceries.  Several beers deep, we picked up a successfully strictly-to-the-list bag of groceries and headed home to cook!  As I had reason to celebrate and Joe is on spring break (that lucky duck!), we splurged a little on some filet mignon and schemed about a sauce to go on top. Bleu cheese is a little overpowering for such a scrumptious steak, so we opted to invent a goat cheese sauce (Hannah- you'd be in heaven, I swear).

Our final menu consisted of:

Steak

Creamy Goat Cheese Sauce

Green Beans

Roasted Potatoes

Okay so at this point I segue over to Joe for the meat expertise, cause it's basically a foreign language to me.

Picnics and Corn Hole

So after our trip to the Garfield Park Conservatory we came home hungry and excited to spend more time outside in the sunshine.  So we grabbed our little Oy-ster and headed out for a picnic!

I packed a blanket, water for Oy, jam, and cheese and we hit the road.  We stopped by Red Hen Bread for a fresh baguette, and found a grassy front yard in front of a church to sit in since our own front yard is a pretty busy place.

And now for the food:

Garfield Park Conservatory

Joe and I have been living in Oak Park for about a year and half, and we take the green line nearly every day. It goes right past the beautiful Garfield Park Conservatory and we tell each other all the time that we'll go there one day.  We've even sent friends and visitors there but still haven't made it ourselves.  We even have a friend who works there!  And we still never made it out.  Until now!

We were having a lazy Saturday morning, and the weather had finally picked up to something sunny and 60's.  Joe was milling around on facebook and saw his friend's post that there was a plant sale going on at the conservatory.  As soon as he said it I jumped on it- it's beautiful out, we can appreciate the weather and finally go! So we walked our little Oy, boxed him up, and off we went!

Prepare yourself for an overwhelming number of pictures!

it's that pretty and we haven't even made it inside yet!

 tulips!

Adios Upstate!

For my last night in Rochester, New York we celebrated by going to one of my favorite new-ish restaurants- TRATA (a.k.a. The Restaurant at the Armory).  The Culver Road Armory was built in 1916 for the local Army National Guard, but fell out of use after WWII.  In 2012 it was totally redone to include office spaces, galleries, and this delicious restaurant.  In the renovation they kept a lot of the old brick walls and steel beams and rehabbed it with more modern touched, including a lot of hand-blown glass lamps.  

We started with a tuna bruschetta, steamed buns with slow-roasted pork belly, and tempura green beans. We ordered double of those delicious little steamed buns because there is no way to describe how heavenly they are. I'm in love.

In fact, I got so excited about those little pork belly rolls I totally forgot to take pictures for the rest of the evening.

But, needless to say, everything else was equally as good.  My mom got duck quesadillas with gruyere and creme fraiche (you can't go wrong with cheesy gooey-ness),  C.J. got the Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp which he really enjoyed despite none of us being curry people, and Dad and I split the Short Ribs.  They're braised in oatmeal stout and served over a cheddar potato cake. I replaced the broccolini that came with it with a side of mac and cheese because, if you haven't understood this yet, I'm in love with everything cheese.  The mac and cheese was crispy on top and gooey inside and had some pancetta in there for good measure.  Well worth the swap!

The next morning my mom and I went for a walk in the canal before my flight went out since the weather was still perfect (75 and sunny).  This time we parked in Bushnell's Basin so we could jump on the highway quick.  

This must be just about the perfect place to relax on a day like this.

Afternoon with Ana continued...

Okay so after lunch we divided to conquer a few errands and then met back up to get in our last bit of sunshine.  We grabbed the essential equipment and headed to our friend Mac's house to do have some classic American fun- pigeon shooting!

This is only my second time, so I am not afraid to admit that I am not that good.  And as I learned this day- a 12 gauge is most definitely too big for me.  I will be sticking to the 20 gauge next time.  Personally, I'm just glad I didn't end up looking like one of these women (for the record- I don't agree with their political stance) because my friends actually taught me a little bit about gun safety and how to properly hold and shoot a weapon.

our shooting range 

It's hard to imagine going to a shooting range to shoot at paper targets when you can be out in this gorgeous weather.  We're lucky to have a friend with both the open land and all the gear.  And while I'm thinking about it, why is a pigeon shooter called a trap?  It makes no sense.

 Ana prepping the trap

Ana shooting her dad's 12 gauge