Are you staying in for Valentine’s Day and are looking for something special to cook for your sweetheart? Here are some ideas for making a memorable Valentine’s Day dinner at home.
Have plenty of candles lit and wine chilled. Use your Valentine’s Bouquet for the table centerpiece. Have a wonderful, romantic Valentine’s Day!
Banana Bread is a family favorite and always reminds me of my childhood. My daddy grew bananas in our back yard, so we often had a huge surplus of bananas to use up. My mom would wait until the bananas were nice and spotty then whip up a few loaves of Banana Bread.
This Banana Bread Recipe makes 2 loaves. Banana Bread freezes well, so you can eat one of these loaves now, then freeze the other one for later. Just put the banana bread in a ziplock bag, squeeze out the air, and stick it in the freezer. When you are ready, just take out the frozen banana bread and leave it sitting out on your counter for an hour or so, in the bag.
You’ll notice that in this recipe, I use Coconut Oil. If you don’t have it on hand, you can substitute whatever cooking oil you have on hand. (Canola, sunflower, corn, vegetable) But I would encourage you to give coconut oil a try, because it really gives the banana bread a great tropical flavor that you will love! Plus, it’s better for you. I got organic, cold pressed, extra virgin coconut oil from Costco. When it’s cool, it will be solidified, so I had to microwave it to make it a liquid in order to pour and measure it properly.
This banana bread recipe is the best I've ever had. The entire house smelled amazing while this banana bread was baking, and for hours afterward. This recipe is a keeper!
Ingredients
3 cups self rising flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
3 eggs
3 large bananas, mashed
1 cup coconut oil, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons milk
Instructions
Prepare 2 loaf pans - line bottoms with baking paper, cut to size, then brush sides of pans with coconut oil.
In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients.
In another bowl, mix the eggs, milk, bananas, coconut oil and vanilla.
Stir wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
Evenly divide batter between the two loaf pans.
Spread batter so it's smooth on top.
Bake at 350 degrees F / 175 degrees C for 65 minutes.
Cool in pans for 30 minutes then remove banana bread from the pans.
Cool completely before storing.
http://cookingwith.sharonspringfield.com/blog/banana-bread/
Allow the banana bread to cool before attempting to slice it. It will be difficult to wait, because this smells so good!
If you want to try something different, spread Nutella or Peanut Butter on a slice of banana bread. It’s SOOO GOOD!!! It’s like dessert heaven!
We usually eat banana bread with breakfast or an afternoon snack. I hope you enjoy this recipe for Banana Bread!
Crescent Roll Apple Dumplings
1 Granny Smith apple
1 8-count tube of low fat crescent rolls (8 oz)
1 stick of butter, melted
1/4 cup Stevia / Sugar Baking Blend
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
Core and peel apple into eight slices. Open can of crescent rolls and unroll. Place one apple slice on the wide end of one crescent and roll it up in the crescent.
Place into a greased 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Continue with other rolls.
In a small bowl combine melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, and flour and mix until just combined.
Spoon over each crescent.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until crescents are golden brown.
Serve warm with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Fluffy Lime Pie made with lime jello, cool whip and lime yogurt.
This is a light, fluffy cool dessert that you can make in 5 minutes and it is very delicious. This could be made with different flavors of jello and yogurt to suit your own tastes.
Ingredients:
1 3 oz. package lime Jello
1/4 cup boiling water
2 6 oz. containers lime yogurt
8 oz. frozen whipped topping, such as Cool Whip
1 9-inch graham cracker pie crust
lime slices and whipped cream, for garnish
Directions:
Dissolve the Lime Jello in the boiling water.
Whisk in the yogurt and frozen whipped topping until smooth. Pour the mixture into the prepared pie crust. Chill in the refrigerator for 3 hours or until firm.
Serve garnished with fresh lime slices and whipped cream.
*I used lime flavored Chobani Greek Yogurt.
(Someone please tell Chobani that KEY limes are yellow, not green!! Slip-ups like that are an insult to Floridians.)
This Fluffy Lime Pie is a pretty green color and would be a great dessert to serve for St. Patrick’s Day or Christmas.
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Recently as my son’s birthday was approaching, asked him what kind of birthday cake he wanted and gave him my phone to flip through my pinterest recipe board. He saw a recipe for Samoas bars and said he wanted an ice cream cake with Samoas bars on top. So, I took on his challenge and came up with this fantastic ice cream cake with the great taste of Samoas Girl Scout cookies.
However, his birthday is not at the time that you can buy Samoas, so I had to improvise. Keebler makes a cookie that’s pretty close, so that’s what I used instead of the real deal.
This ice cream cake is made in the same fashion as the one I posted last year, so refer to my prior post on how to make a homemade ice cream cake for more detailed instructions and pictures of the process.
For the Samoas Ice Cream Cake, you will need the following ingredients:
Ingredients:
2 pkg Keebler Coconut Dreams cookies or Samoas Girl Scout Cookies
1/2 gal chocolate ice cream or frozen yogurt
1/2 gal dulce de leche (caramel) ice cream or frozen yogurt
1 bag of shredded coconut
caramel sauce
chocolate chips
Directions:
First, prepare a springform pan by lining it with plastic wrap.
Using a food processor, chop up the cookies into crumbles. Do not turn them to dust, there should be some chunks.
Toast the coconut in a nonstick skillet. You will need to do this in about 3 batches for a whole bag of coconut. (I actually only did about 2/3 of the bag and that was enough for the size of cake I made. )
Turn the heat up to medium, add a thin layer of shredded coconut to the skillet and stir it frequently until the coconut is a golden color. Add to a bowl and set aside.
While you are toasting the coconut, you can have your chocolate ice cream sitting out to soften. (about 10 minutes)
Now you have everything ready to go to start assembling the ice cream cake.
Sprinkle the crumbled cookies on the bottom of the springform pan. You will use approximately half of the crumbs for the bottom layer.
Spoon scoops of ice cream over the crumb layer until the entire crumb layer is covered with about an inch and a half layer of ice cream. Sprinkle another layer of cookie crumbs and about half of your toasted coconut over the ice cream and drizzle with caramel. Cover with plastic wrap and very gently press down just to even out the layer. Be careful, the ice cream is soft and you don’t want to push it too hard.
Freeze this layer until it is firm.
Soften the dulce de leche ice cream for about 10 minutes. Add a layer of dulce de leche ice cream to your springform pan. If you have any more cookie crumbs left over, sprinkle them around the outer edge of the top of the ice cream layer. Fill in with the rest of your toasted coconut and lightly drizzle with more caramel. Cover and freeze until the ice cream cake is solid.
Remove the cake from the freezer and remove the springform ring. Using the plastic wrap, lift the ice cream cake off the bottom of the springform cake pan and place the cake on your cake stand. Slip out the plastic wrap.
Melt about half a bag of chocolate chips in the microwave. Transfer the chocolate to a small zip-lock bag. Snip the corner of your baggie and squeeze the melted chocolate over top of the cake. Place the cake back in the freezer uncovered until the chocolate is hardened then cover with plastic wrap.
And that’s it! Slice and serve. Be prepared to hear lots of mmmm’s, this is a great ice cream cake! My son said it’s the best dessert he has ever had in his life. Nice compliment!
Enjoy this delicious Samoas Ice Cream cake!
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Here’s the Pinterest link for this recipe: Samoas Ice Cream Cake
