Category Archives: Breakfast

Double Chocolate Banana Bread

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I might have to rename this site, “Jamie Makes Banana Bread.”  I’ve been making other recipes lately — this weekend I made Cinnamon Sugar Pecans that I thought I’d share with you — unfortunately, they don’t believe in photographs.  They tasted pretty awesome though…  Just so you know, I don’t only make banana bread…   but as I’ve said before, it is a weekly event, so when I’m in need of a recipe to make the blog look like someone cares about it, I just change it up a bit. 😉

This double chocolate banana bread turned out amazing.  We had it for dessert as part of a delicious Sunday dinner.  Even though it was only in the low 30s, Mike and the kids spent a few hours outside yesterday afternoon working in the yard and running around.  We are so desperate for Spring!  After they came in we had hamburgers on the grill (Bo ate nearly two!), coleslaw, baked beans, and baked French fries — followed up by generous pieces of this banana bread (Bo also ate two — he must be growing…).  Of course the trio loved this — it was banana bread — plus it had chocolate chips.  I couldn’t really go wrong.

As with all banana bread, this was quick and easy to throw together.  The chocolate make it rich and dessert worthy.  Definitely a new keeper to add to our banana bread rotation.

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Double Chocolate Banana Bread
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Serves: 8
 
Ingredients
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • ⅓ cup oil (Canola, Coconut, whatever you like)
  • 3 overripe bananas
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ½ cup cocoa powder
  • 1½ cups flour
  • 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 and spray a loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray. In the bowl of your mixer, combine the sugar and the eggs. Add the oil and bananas until the bananas are well mashed and combined. Add the vanilla, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Add the flour and mix until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour.

 

Cinnamon Ribbon Banana Bread

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At our house, banana bread is nearly a weekly occurrence.  The trio loves it.  It’s easy.  And we seem to always have ripe bananas ready for mashing on our counter.  I abide by the philosophy that one can never have too many bananas…

Since I make banana bread so often, I’m also often looking for ways to change it up a bit and this banana bread has a delightful cinnamon ribbon in the middle that gives it just a bit of crunch and extra cinnamony goodness.  This recipe makes two loaves, but it could easily be halved to only make one.

The trio and I had it for dessert last night and again this morning for breakfast.  It was a huge hit — and they appreciated the cinnamon ribbon.  Anna thought it tasted like a cookie.  Bo exclaimed that it was the best banana bread ever — but he often says that.  And Clara licked the plate, which I took as a compliment instead of poor manners.

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Cinnamon Ribbon Banana Bread
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Serves: 10
 
Ingredients
  • 4 cups flour
  • 1½ tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 stick butter, unsalted, softened
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2 tsp. vanilla
  • 6 small/medium sized overripe bananas
  • ½ cup yogurt
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 2 tsp. cinnamon
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two loaf pans by spraying with Baking PAM and place them on a cookie sheet. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside. In a stand mixer, combine the butter and brown sugar and mix well. Add the eggs, one at a time and then add the bananas. Mix until the bananas are no longer lumpy. Add the yogurt (you can use any kind you have on hand -- I actually used strawberry with chunks that the kids don't like, but by the time it was baked you couldn't tell there was strawberry yogurt in it). Add the flour mixture until the batter is just combined. In your prepared loaf pans, spread ¼ of the batter into each. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle ½ of the sugar/cinnamon mixture over each half loaf. Spread ¼ of the remaining batter on top of each of the loaves. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until golden brown and mostly set.

 

Cinnamon Vanilla Protein Pancakes

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Protein Pancakes
Most weekends, we make a big breakfast at least one weekend morning.  Favorites include pancakes, waffles, Mike’s famous cheesey scrambled eggs, and bacon.  This weekend, I decided to try out these protein pancakes.  I’m trying (and mostly failing) to eat more protein and fewer carbs and I was curious to see if the trio would eat this creation.

All three of the kids liked them.  Clara wasn’t as in enamored as Bo and Anna, but she ate them as well.  The combination of ingredients seems a bit strange, but the taste is really quite good — and I didn’t even miss all of the flour and sugar in my traditional recipe.  I served ours with a small amount of maple syrup.  If you want a real protein bang, try them with almond butter or peanut butter on top!

If you’re visiting from my friend Amber’s blog, Becoming a Coupon Queen, welcome!  I hope you enjoy the recipes and knowing that Amber needs a recipe each week is helping me to be a bit more motivated about taking photos of the food I making!  If you haven’t visited Amber’s site, go check it out.  She has lots of good money saving tips!

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Cinnamon Vanilla Protein Pancakes
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Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 2 cups liquid egg whites or 12 egg whites
  • 2 cups old fashioned oatmeal
  • 2 cups cottage cheese
  • 4 Tbsp. sugar or sweetener of choice
  • 1 Tbsp. cinnamon
  • 1 Tbsp. vanilla
Instructions
  1. In a high-powered blender (I used a Ninja) combine all ingredients and pulse until smooth. Cook pancakes over medium heat until cooked through. Serve with maple syrup and butter, almond butter, peanut butter, or other toppings of your choice. Recipe can easily be halved or extra pancakes can be frozen for quick breakfasts later.

 

Banana Baked Oatmeal

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Banana Bread baked oatmeal

I made this baked oatmeal on Tuesday morning for my trio to have for breakfast before school.  We had several very ripe bananas that needed to be used after spending the long weekend in the Wisconsin Dells.  The trio love to help me cook and both Clara and Bo helped to mash the bananas and combine the ingredients, which helped them to think that breakfast was extra wonderful since they helped make it.  Anna was still asleep (by some miracle) and they were sure to encourage her to thank them for making breakfast. 😉

This recipe is a great weekday morning breakfast — it’s healthier than many breakfast options and tastes great with a smear of peanut butter on top.  I served it to the kids with glasses of milk – and enjoyed a cup of coffee with mine.

This makes 12 servings, but it is very good leftover and can be frozen in squares for an extra quick “on the go” breakfast option.

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Banana Baked Oatmeal
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Serves: 12
 
Ingredients
  • 5 overly ripe bananas, mashed
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ cup brown sugar (you can use an alternative sweetener)
  • 3 cups quick cook oatmeal
  • 2 tsp. baking soda
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 1 cup almond milk (any milk you have on hand will work fine)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9x13 inch pan with PAM. In a large bowl, mash the bananas. Add the eggs and brown sugar and continue mashing until it is well combined. Stir in the oatmeal, baking soda, salt, and milk. Pour mixture into pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. Cut into squares and serve. Great topped with a smear of peanut butter.

 

Cinnamon Crumb Cake

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School is officially in full-swing and that means my schedule of weekly breakfast dates with a few of my favorite people is also revamping.  Laura and I are meeting up on Wednesday mornings for breakfast and conversation before I work and she heads to the library with her youngest, Cara, who isn’t in school yet.

After talking about it for weeks, I finally made this delicious cinnamon crumb cake this week for our breakfast.  Bo and I were both up at 6 and he helped me make it.  My first attempt I was still asleep and used powdered sugar instead of flour — needless to say by the time it was ready for the oven I realized something wasn’t quite right!  We started over and still had delicious crumb cake for the trio to eat for breakfast and then to share with Laura and Cara after school drop-off.  And yes, I finally bought labels for my pantry staples this week — nothing like a complete disaster to finally motivate that purchase!

This cinnamon crumb cake is very easy to pull together — even for a weekday morning breakfast.  It tastes amazing — and extra special!  It’s perfect with coffee.  Or Coca-Cola if you ask Laura. 😉

This recipe received rave reviews from all who tried it!  Five Wooden Spoons for this one!

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Cinnamon Crumb Cake
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Serves: 12
 
Ingredients
  • Batter Base and Topping:
  • 1 cup canola oil
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup white sugar
  • 2½ cups flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Additions to the Batter Base after removing one cup for the topping:
  • 1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk plus 1 Tbsp. white vinegar)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • Additions to the topping:
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 2 Tbsp. Flour
  • 2 Tbsp. Sugar
  • Glaze:
  • ½ cup powdered sugar
  • 1 Tbsp. milk
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan with PAM baking spray. In a large bowl, combine oil, brown sugar, sugar, flour, and salt. Mix well. Remove one cup of mixture into another smaller bowl before adding buttermilk, egg, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Pour this mixture into the prepared pan.
  2. Add cinnamon, flour, and sugar to the remaining mixture and combine until crumbly. If necessary, add more flour and sugar until it reaches the desired consistency. Sprinkle the crumbs on top of the batter.
  3. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
  4. While baking, combine powdered sugar and milk. Drizzle with glaze after the cake is removed from the oven.

 

Cookie Butter Baked Oatmeal

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Recently, breakfast has been baking time.  With the trio on summer break, we rarely have anything scheduled before 10 am, which gives us plenty of time to make yummy breakfast goodies in the morning.

This recipe was inspired by a jar of Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter that has been hanging out in my cabinet since Christmas.  It’s similar to Biscoff spread so either ingredient should work in this recipe.  The resulting oatmeal has that spicy cookie flavor — and it was the perfect recipe for the dreary and rainy day.  (Pardon the photo quality — it was raining and dark so there was no natural light).

I made this in a round 2 quart Corningware dish, but when I make it again I think I will make it in a 9×13 inch pan and cut it into squares.  Also, you can serve it with syrup, but I didn’t think it was necessary so we just ate ours plain.  The kids loved it.

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Cookie Butter Baked Oatmeal
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Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 1¾ cups old fashioned oatmeal
  • 1½ tsp baking powder
  • ½ cup Cookie Butter
  • 1¼ cup milk
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • ¼ cup sugar
Instructions
  1. Spray a large dish (round or 9x13) with PAM. In a large bowl, mix the oats and baking powder together. In a separate bowl combine the cookie butter, eggs, milk and vanilla and mix well. Mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients together and pour into prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until set.

Anna requests chocolate chip oatmeal nearly every day and she gave this “special” Cookie Butter Baked Oatmeal two thumbs up — and a tongue out for good measure. 😉

Bananas Foster Muffins

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Sorry for the hiatus.  Vacation.  Work.  Summer break.  A brief stint in hard-core low-carbing.  None of it has been conducive to a cooking blog.

The trio and I have been going on outings on Tuesdays and Thursdays to enjoy summer.  Last Tuesday, we headed to Bloomington to go to Chuck E. Cheese with the Kilmartin’s — but before we headed out I whipped together these bananas foster muffins for breakfast with overripe bananas that were calling me from my countertop.  I’m always looking for new ways to use up old bananas…

These muffins were a hit with the trio — they all loved them.  The flavor is perfectly bananas foster.  Delicious!  These were great for breakfast but would also make a fantastic dessert served with ice cream and real bananas foster!

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Bananas Foster Muffins
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Serves: 6
 
Ingredients
  • 1 ½ cups mashed, very ripe bananas (I used 4)
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • 1½ sticks unsalted butter, divided
  • 3 Tbsp dark rum
  • ¼ cup white sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp. salt
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350. In a small saucepan, melt a stick of the butter. Add the bananas and brown sugar and caramelize. Remove from heat and add the cinnamon and vanilla. Allow to cool slightly.
  2. In a mixer, combine the remaining butter and white sugar. Add the egg and mix well. Add the cooled banana mixture, baking soda, and salt. Mix in the flour until just combined.
  3. Spray 12 muffin liners with PAM and fill ⅔rds full. Bake for 18-20 minutes.

 

Laura’s Eclair Cake

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I’m starting to wonder if my best bud Laura is trying to make me fat.  🙂  On Saturday evening, we got together to make tortellini and she made this delicious eclair cake for dessert.  She’s made it for me one other time and it always ends up being my nemesis.  I just can’t stop eating it.  I had two pieces on Saturday night and then she left the cake at my house — and I’ve eaten it for breakfast every day this week.  Healthy much?

Laura says that this recipe is quick and easy to pull together — the trick is that it needs to be made at least 24 hours in advance.  However, when you’re getting together for dinner that can be nice because it is all made and cleaned up in advance.  The best part — it’s delicious!  Even Mike, avid pudding hater, thinks this cake is pretty amazing!

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Laura's Eclair Cake
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Serves: 12
 
Ingredients
  • 1 box graham crackers
  • 2 large packages instant French Vanilla pudding
  • 9 oz Cool Whip
  • 3 cups milk
  • 1 container chocolate icing
Instructions
  1. Spray a 9x13 inch pan with PAM. In a large bowl, combine the milk and pudding until thick. Fold in the Cool Whip. Place a layer of graham crackers over the bottom of the pan. Spread half of the pudding mixture over the top and add another layer of graham crackers, then the other half of the pudding mixture. Add the last layer of graham crackers (3 layers of crackers total). Microwave the icing for 30 seconds to 1 minute until pourable and pour over the top of the graham crackers. Chill for 24 to 48 hours before serving. This is a recipe that gets better with time!

 

Crockpot Steel Cut Oatmeal

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I’ve always loved oatmeal, but for the past several years I haven’t eaten it often — mostly because I simply didn’t have the time in the mornings to babysit a pan of oats on the stove to make sure they reached the right consistency.  My mornings are filled with attempting to feed, dress, and contain my trio so that they end up at school on time.  In text, this seems like a simple task, but in reality, it made dealing with a pot of oatmeal for 30 minutes in the morning nearly impossible.

Recently, I discovered the perfect crockpot steel cut oatmeal recipe.  It is divine!  I’ve eaten it nearly every day for the last two weeks and it is perfect for my busy mornings!  I make a batch on Sunday evening and then I have breakfast ready for four days that week.  I make the batch plain and add my toppings based on my mood. To the oatmeal above, I added half of a sliced banana, a teaspoon of brown sugar, and 10 pecan halves chopped.  Amazing.  Seriously.  It’s the texture and creaminess of the oatmeal that makes it so delicious!

The recipe below makes 4 servings, but can easily be doubled or tripled if more people in your family eat oats.  I store them in a Tupperware container and scoop out what I would like into a bowl and microwave for about a minute and 15 seconds before adding my sweetener and toppings.  Some topping ideas besides the banana/pecan mixture include mini chocolate chips/chopped almonds/sugar, chopped apple/crunchy peanut butter/honey, and this mornings creation – raisins/brown sugar/vanilla extract – tasted like an oatmeal cookie!

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Crockpot Steel Cut Oatmeal
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Serves: 4
 
Ingredients
  • 1 cup steel cut oatmeal
  • 3 cups water
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • desired toppings/sweetener
Instructions
  1. In a small crockpot, combine the steel cut oats, water, and salt. Stir. Cook on low for approximately 4 hours, on high for approximately 2 hours until desired consistency. Transfer to a Tupperware container and store in the fridge for up to 6 days. Dish out and microwave in the morning - topping with your desired ingredients.

 

Bacon, Fried Egg, & Avocado Breakfast Sandwich

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On Sunday morning, I awoke to the smell of bacon.  Mike was making these tasty, bacon, fried egg, and avocado breakfast sandwiches.  I emerged from our room just in time, as the kids were begging for pancakes.  While I made pancakes for the trio, Mike made these for us, and they were quite tasty.  I love avocado and bacon in all forms.

Overall, the sandwich itself is pretty basic – but the avocado/Miracle Whip mixture is the perfect, creamy, condiment for this breakfast sandwich – with just a hint of kick.  Mike rarely makes dinner (except for guac) but at least one weekend morning, I am promised some type of breakfast concoction. I’ll definitely be requesting these sandwiches again in the future.

These sandwiches were inspired by Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications HomeMade 115 Recipes for Home-Cooked Comfort.

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Bacon, Fried Egg, & Avocado Breakfast Sandwich
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Serves: 2
 
Ingredients
  • 1 large avocado
  • 2 Tbsp. light Miracle Whip
  • 1 tsp. lemon juice
  • 1 tsp. minced garlic
  • 1 tsp. chili powder
  • 2 eggs
  • pepper
  • 2 slices of hearty bread (we used country white)
  • 2 slices of cheddar cheese
  • 2 slices crispy bacon
Instructions
  1. Mash half of the avocado in a small bowl. Stir in Miracle Whip, lemon juice, garlic, and chili powder. Slice the remaining avocado and set aside. Spray a skillet with olive oil spray and break eggs into the skillet. Sprinkle with pepper and cook for 4-5 minutes until the yolks are the desired doneness. Cut the bread in half (or use 4 slices - our bread was long) and layer our breakfast sandwich. Bread - cheese - avocado slices - bacon - fried egg. Spread the other half of the bread with the sauce mixture and place on top. Enjoy!