Banana Chips

I made these banana chips weeks ago, deep in the black hole of my extended blog "vacation" from July-November, so they never made it on here. Today's the day! Apologies to those of you frantically searching for holiday recipes for the 5,378 parties you'll be attending/hosting over the next two weeks...banana chips are probably not the answer. But these little guys are delicious & super easy to make. With only two ingredients (who am I kidding this isn't even a real recipe): Bananas. Coconut Oil. Boom. Your non-festive holiday party snack ready to go.

Ingredients:

Three large bananas
Coconut Oil (or any kind of oil)

Directions:

Slice the bananas very thin, coat in oil, and spread evenly across a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Sprinkle with salt. Bake at 250° for about 2 hours, turning after 90 minutes. Let cool. The longer they cool, the crispier they become. If eaten right away (which I usually do), you'll have chewier "chips." Either consistency is equally yummy.

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Nerdy Life Goals

For someone who doesn't do resolutions, this post sure looks a lot like a list of resolutions. However, it's really more a bunch of longer-term goals and ideas that have been taking up a significant amount of space in my brain lately and refuse to vacate. Ding ding! They must be important to me. To e-ink and e-paper they go!

My Goals:

• Travel more. Whether it's two miles away or 2,000, I want to go/see/experience it.
• Visit my family more often. These days, the norm is seeing them at Thanksgiving, Christmas and 1-2 other times throughout the year. Unacceptable! Frequent flier miles here I come.
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator in my apartment building every day. It's five measly flights, yet shockingly weeze-inducing.
• Blog more often. The process of putting my thoughts to digital paper and sending them out into the ether of the internet universe has become, to my surprise, something I truly enjoy. Carving out the time is the most difficult part.
• Cook/Bake more and try out new recipes. Also something recently discovered that I'm surprised to find I love. Plus, I already have an eager taste-tester waiting in the wings with Kevin!
• Take more pictures. My older and wiser self will look back at them some day and thank me.
• Work on being less of an emotional eater and more on constructively managing anxiety, pressure, and uncertainty (hello stress eating). Embarrassing to admit, but heck, we're all friends here right? If I can't say it to the faceless, anonymous walls of the interwebs, then when can I.

These are the biggies that have been rattling around my head. More to come I'm sure. What are some of YOURS?

Thanks for listening blogosphere!

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Christmas Came Early

It's here! It's here!

My wonderful, fantastic, loving mother bought me this Vitamix food processor as an early Christmas gift a couple weeks ago when we were all in Philadelphia. I have been waiting patiently for its arrival ever since, imagining all the delicious smoothies, spreads, sauces, and batters to concoct, and today was the day! Wasting no time at all, I pulled it right out of the box and whipped up some very Fall-appropriate pumpkin/raisin muffins right then and there. Thanks Mom!!

The Vitamix don't mess around!

Pumpkin/Raisin Muffins

Up Close & Personal

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Preparing For the Apocalypse...With Chili

Alright, so the end of the world is not upon us, but what the heck, I like to be prepared.

This need to feel prepared, I believe, dates back into the far reaches of my childhood. As a youngster in elementary school, I remember wearing my school uniform to bed so that I could wake up the next morning already dressed and ready to go. Seriously. My eight-year-old self was convinced I was so clever to have come up with such an idea. Proud of all the time I was saving in the morning (which couldn't have been more than 5 minutes at most), I would secretly congratulate myself as I jumped out of bed clad in a white collared blouse and navy jumper smurking I bet no one else does this! Yes that's probably true, because all the other 4th graders were busy being normal kids and waking up for school in normal pajamas. Looking back, #1 I can't believe my mom let me go to sleep dressed like that. It's nearly impossible that I woke up with anything less than 1,000 wrinkles all over my uniform which she then had to iron out. And #2, did I not shower in the mornings?? If I did, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of hopping out of bed dressed and ready to go? These are just a few of the burning questions I wish I could go back and ask my eight-year-old self. Unsurprisingly, all I can seem to recall is how pleased I was with myself for coming up with the whole idea.

Veggies give their last looks.

Eventually I grew out of the habit, but revisiting the memory now it's clear, in hindsight, that my adolescent self was just trying to wrest some sort of control over the seeming chaos of the morning school-day routine. Anticipate the "unknown" in some way. That, or capture a few extra minutes of sleep. As anyone who knows me can attest, I love my Z's. Regardless, having said all of this leads me to Sunday's chili-making spree. In my adult life I'd like to think I've learned to go with the flow more and remain flexible in the face of uncertainty, but admittedly, my latent preparad-ness tendencies only manifest themselves in less crazy ways than when I was a kid. Exhibit A: batch cooking for the week. Sunday was spent slicing and dicing onions, bell peppers, carrots, cauliflower, sweet potatoes and parsnips (along with some ground turkey and black beans!) into a delicious, hearty pot of chili that's served as my lunch every day this week. With the cool, crisp days of Fall just around the corner, there's really nothing better than stick-to-your-ribs chili.

Simmer away!

In a strange way, having my lunches/food ready to go for the week beforehand makes me feel generally less-stressed and mentally ready to tackle the workweek along with whatever else crops up. The way I see it, already knowing what I'm going to eat for lunch is one less "decision" to think about during the day. Don't get me wrong, I love a splashy Chipotle lunch as much as the next gal. As they say, variety is the spice of life. But for the most part I find it works for me. Plus, it helps at the end of the day too, when work goes late and I'm about to eat my arm off in sheer starvation--to have healthy food options already prepared and ready to pop in the microwave. Literally, life- and arm-saving. 

What little tricks and tips do you do to prepare for the day/week ahead? Hopefully it's not sleeping in your next day's clothes!
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A Bread-tastic Weekend

I recently turned 28 and have been feeling all of my twenty-eight years lately. I realize the ridiculousness of this statement within the larger scheme of life and how relatively young 28 truly is, but what can I say, I am not feeling very spring chicken-y! All jokes aside, I am enjoying entering my late twenties, but have been noticing lately the domestic itch creeping in. Not in a bad way! Just interestingly so. Case in point: cooking. Up until recently, I have never been that keen on learning to cook despite both my parents being very talented in the kitchen and big proponents of the nightly home-made dinner while growing up. However, over the last couple of months or so, I've gotten into cooking and baking and it has become a fun journey of discovery and a real source of joy for me. I'm certainly no Julia Child (yet!), and don't have a ton of practice, but am loving the experience of finding new recipes to try and the sense of accomplishment that comes with the success (and sometimes failure!) of the finished product.

Ingredient line-up 

Today, I baked bread from scratch. And not just any old bread -- gluten-free/sugar-free bread. Pretty advanced stuff! I followed a recipe that called for coconut flour in place of regular all-purpose white flour from the blog Against All Grain, which you can find here.

I must say, the loaf came out looking and tasting darn good! No hint of coconut flavor either, which I was a little worried about.

All in all, a wonderful way to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Fresh out of the oven!

P.S. a big shout out to the bf who fully supports my culinary adventures even though, as he puts it, "there is no sous chef in baking." I insist there has got to be. We are working on it!

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