Recipe: Cream Cheese Banana Bread

My version is a little overbrowned...

I was vastly unprepared for this recipe. I thought I had all of the ingredients and was ready to go, but I didn't actually check that until I had already started mixing things together in a bowl. The only reason I even made this recipe was because I knew I'd have leftover cream cheese after I had finished the bagels in my freezer. I did have leftover cream cheese, but only about two ounces; I thought I'd have about half a brick left, and this recipe actually calls for six ounces. So... this was destined to be an adventure.

Ingredients

For the bread:

·        2 large very ripe bananas peeled and mashed

·        ⅓ cup salted butter melted

·        ¾ cup light brown sugar packed

·        1 large egg

·        2 teaspoons vanilla

·        1 teaspoon baking soda

·        1½ cups all-purpose flour

For the cheesecake filling:

·        6 ounces cream cheese room temperature

·        ¼ cup granulated sugar

·        1 large egg

·        ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

·        3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9x5 loaf pan with nonstick spray.

For the bread:

In a large bowl combine mashed bananas, butter, sugar, egg, vanilla and baking soda. Stir until combined. Gently stir in the flour. Mix just until incorporated. Set this aside.

For the cheesecake filling:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with an electric mixer) beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth.
2. Add in the egg and vanilla and mix until smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Finally, mix in the flour and stir just until combined.

To assemble:

1. Spread half of the banana bread batter into the bottom of your prepared pan.
2. Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture in top of the batter. Spread the remaining banana bread batter on top of the cream cheese mixture.
3. Bake for about 50-60 minutes until the center of the bread is set. If the bread is browning too quickly, tent the pan with aluminum foil.
4. Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 20-30 minutes before removing. Cool completely before slicing and serving.

Like I said, I knew this was going to be a disaster, but realized it a little too late and didn't want to waste anything, so figured I might as well bake something. Again, I didn't have enough cream cheese, and the filling was looking so wet. I stole some of my roommate's Laughing Cow cheese wedges to replace some of the missing cream cheese; not ideal, but I was getting creative! I also didn't know that I had run out of vanilla extract, and I was thiiiiis close to accidentally using mint extract instead! Thank goodness they are different colors so I knew something was wrong as soon as I poured it into the measuring spoon! I also never buy salted butter, so I meant to add some salt to the batter before I put it in the oven, but I totally forgot about doing that. Maybe the salt in the cheese wedges helped...? And while I did have enough brown sugar, it had become hard as a rock (typical). I was able to break up the block with my hands, but I didn't bother measuring it. I figure the rock was as "packed" as it was going to get anyway, and I just eyeballed what I thought looked like 3/4 of a cup. So, this clearly was kind of a DIY recipe.

All the white-yellowy liquid is the wet cheese mixture, and you can see how I didn't divide the batter properly
because I didn't have enough to cover the top. Not a great start!

Anyway, my cream cheese filling was so wet, and I didn't divide the dough mixture evenly between the top and bottom layers, so I thought the whole thing was going to end up a big mess. I baked the loaf for 60 minutes; I knew that was a little long, but I was really afraid of all the liquid! In the end, everything solidified and was indeed a bread (instead of a mushy bread pudding that I thought I'd get). It was a little dry, probably from overbaking (I also overmixed the dough mixture picking out those funky chunks of brown sugar that form sometimes). If I ever try to make this recipe again, I will clearly make sure I have ALL the proper ingredients first! I don't mind winging some things, but this was a real nail-biter...

Recipe: Meat-and-Tater Bake

I was looking in my freezer, and I realized I had TWO big bags of frozen French fries in there. So I started looking up recipes for how I could use the fries other than just by themselves (which of course is delicious, but).

Taste of Home had several recipes that were quite similar: Beef & Tater Bake; Ham 'n' Tater Bake; Broccoli Beef Supper. I mostly followed the instructions for the last one, but I took into account the other two to think about what I needed, what I could leave out, etc. 

Ingredients

• 4 cups frozen cottage fries
• 1 pound ground beef
• 3 cups frozen chopped broccoli, thawed
• 1 can (2.8 ounces) french-fried onions, divided
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed cream of celery soup, undiluted
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided
• 1/2 cup 2% milk
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Line bottom and sides of a greased 13x9-in. baking dish with cottage fries. Bake, uncovered, at 400° for 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; crumble beef; drain. Layer the beef, broccoli, half of the onions and the tomato over fries. In a small bowl, combine the soup, 1/2 cup cheese, milk, garlic powder and pepper; pour over top.

 

3. Cover and bake at 20 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese and onions. Bake 2 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

As per usual, I did a few things my own way. I actually didn't look up what cottage fries are until after I had already made the recipe, but all fries are kinda the same, right? I don't eat mammals, so instead of using ground beef or ham, I used ground turkey (although I did get the 85% lean kind just in case a little extra fat would make it taste better). The first recipe called for a whole bag of frozen broccoli, but when I was adding that layer to the casserole, that seemed like a lot. I stopped at what I thought looked like a good amount in proportion to the rest of the dish; the other two recipes call for three cups of broccoli, and I think I did about that (though I did not measure; I also did not drain it, but it didn't seem too wet from being thawed...). I didn't bother with the onion, and I just sprinkled the spices in there rather than measuring them out. I also topped the dish with Chao, a plant-based cheese that Safeway was giving away for free. I figured it was worth trying, seeing as I didn't risk paying for it! As you can see from the photo, it didn't melt very well, and I had it in the oven for five minutes! So maybe not the best cheese for this recipe (although, seeing as most shredded cheese recipes involve melting it, what is this cheese good for...?). 

All in all, I thought this recipe was pretty good, and very easy to make! Would definitely recommend!

My Trip to Nashville!

For my birthday, my boyfriend took me to Nashville, Tennessee! Neither of us had been before, and he knows I love country music, so it was the perfect place to celebrate my special day. 

Here are some highlights from my trip:

Seeing a concert at the Grand Ole Opry

This was the one thing that I knew I wanted to do while we were in Music City. I kept monitoring the guests who were going to perform during the long weekend, and I eventually purchased tickets to see Logan Mize. I had never heard of him before, but after checking out some of his stuff on YouTube, I liked his sound. But I had no idea how many acts we would see that night. We saw EIGHT different acts! Each performance was just a couple of songs, so we had a nice variety. Along with Mize, we also saw Parmalee and Chris Janson (he was the headliner), and included in the mix were also comedian Brian Bates (featured on Dry Bar Comedy) the R&B duo Louis York, and a few old-timey sounding country singers. I didn't expect quite a show like that! It was so much fun, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Nashville. And if I ever get back there, I'm totally going again!

Here are a few of my favorite songs from the night:

Logan Mize' Better off Gone

Parmalee's Take My Name

Chris Janson's Flag on the Wall (I had never heard this song before, but I like patriotic country songs!)

And here's a video of Janson playing the harmonica at a previous concert at the Grand Ole Opry:

Image found here

Visiting Nashville Distilleries

I'm not a beer drinker, so I don't really go to breweries, and wineries are normally outside of city limits, and we didn't have a car for this trip. But more and more cities have distilleries that are easily walkable from downtown, and Nashville has plenty of them! On the afternoon when we arrived, after we had lunch at Jack Cawthon's for some barbeque, we headed to Clinton Street where there are three distilleries in a row! The first one we visited (and our favorite) was Nelson's Green Brier Distillery. We loved hearing the history of this distillery: it was the first one to make Tennessee whiskey, and just a few years ago two brothers discovered that this distillery was started by their great-grandfather, so they picked up the tradition! We also did tastings at the Tennessee Legend Distillery (which really just felt like a gift shop), Grinder's Switch Winery (not a distillery, but), and Corsair Distillery (where I bought a rocks glass; my first souvenir!). On another day we visited the tasting room for the Ole Smoky Tennessee Distillery. They have so many flavors, but each day they pre-select the seven you get to try. When you paid for a tasting, you got a coupon for $10 off at the gift shop, so I bought a second souvenir glass!

Image found here

Going to the Seltzerland Festival

Along with the tasting theme, we went to the Seltzerland Festival at the Riverside Golf Center. We had not planned for this at all. I just googled things to do in Nashville for that Saturday, and this popped up. I had heard of these hard seltzer tastings before and always wanted to go, and now I had my chance! We paid for the Uber to take us up there, nearly 30 minutes away from Nashville. We started with White Claw and worked our way through some familiar brands like Mike's Hard Lemonade, but most of them were totally new brands to us. My thoughts on each (that I can remember):

• The pineapple flavor of the Mike's Hard Lemonade Seltzer was the best. Very refreshing for the summertime!
• Buzz Ballz has cute packaging in little spheres, and the chocolate one was so yummy!
• Happy Dad's claim to fame is that it's less carbonated, which I personally don't like. I enjoy the bubbles!
• Mighty Swell had so many flavors to choose from, I couldn't even taste them all! I was a bit overwhelmed, so all the tastes kind of meld together in my brain...
• I had seen Wild Basin in Total Wine stores, but I had never tried it. At this event, they were just showcasing their hard teas, which I didn't like as much. I would have liked to try the berry flavors instead.
• Freshie is a brand-new tequila seltzer that only has one flavor: lime. It's kind of like a margarita, but if I had my choice, I'd rather have the traditional cocktail.
• Country Luau is pretty new, made by a guy who was into cocktails. A percentage of sales go to musicians, which is fun. The flavors gave me tropical, summer-time vibes.
• I had seen Lone River's Ranch Water previously (it was even offered at the Kendra Scott grand opening downtown the day before). I'm not the biggest fan because it's not as fruity or flavorful as most seltzers. But we did try their new margarita seltzer with a splash of their spicy flavor, and that was pretty good!
• Flying Panda was started by a woman (woot!) and each flavor supports a different endangered animal species. Amazing work! I'd buy it just because of those two things!
• Post Meridiem's canned cocktails are really what did us in. While hard seltzers usually have about the same amount of alcohol as beer or wine, these miniature cans were ~25% alcohol, making them strong. This did not mix well with the light, less alcoholic seltzers! So while they were fun to try, I'm not sure they are the best fit for this event...

About half-way through the loop of tastings, we reached the food trucks, where we enjoyed some truffle pasta (why there was no pizza truck, I have no idea). But that's as far as we got: the alcohol, the sun, and the heat were getting to us, so we just headed back. If I go to one of these again, I'll definitely hydrate more and pace myself better!

Having a milkshake at Legendairy

My friend recommended the Legendairy Milkshake Bar to me, and as the owner of an enormous sweet-tooth, I had to check it out. My boyfriend and I split (no pun intended) the banana split one, replacing the strawberry and banana ice creams with just chocolate. SO delicious! Not that I had any doubts. I could have eaten any of these and been in heaven. My only complaint was the cost: it was nearly $18 for us to split one, and that doesn't even include the branded mason jar! Very yummy, but perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime kinda thing.

Watching the dancing at Nashville Palace

The same friend who recommended Legendairy also suggested that we check out Nashville Palace after the Grand Ole Opry. It was about a 20-minute walk, but not bad on a pretty night. It feels like a dive bar for sure, and the drinks were sub-par. But watching the regulars (I assume) two-step and line-dance was so much fun! They were amazing! As a blues dancer myself, I can definitely appreciate some good social dancing, and they were tearing up the floor. I have no idea how they knew which sequence to dance to which song, but they were killing it. It made me want to dance! But the only song I took part in was the Cha-Cha Slide, since it tells you what to do... Like this:

And we did even more things than that! We visited the Johnny Cash Museum, had drinks at Nudie's, shopped for boots and hats along Broadway (although didn't buy anything), walked around Vanderbilt's campus and saw the Parthenon in Centennial Park... We packed a lot in!

I would definitely visit Nashville again. But after a couple of years of not being able to travel, I want to go to some new places first. Next up: Austin, TX for my sister's bachelorette party! Stay tuned for that post!