A Chocolate Banana Bread Recipe

Here’s the story: we had a lot of bananas. We had a taste for something chocolatey. We knew what we had to do.

We had to make chocolate banana bread, naturally. Actually, we had originally planned to make a banana pound cake that Thomas’ sister made and had sent him the recipe for, but PJ got a taste for chocolate (always) so we decided to make this one first. And we gotta say, we don’t regret it. It’s the perfect mix of banana and chocolate and it’s so moist, almost tasting cake-ish, in all the best ways of course.

Here’s what you’re going to need, taken directly from Two Peas and Their Pod:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

• 3 large brown bananas   (1 1/2 cups mashed)

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

• 1/4 cup canola vegetable oil, or melted coconut oil

• 3/4 cup  packed light brown sugar

• 1 large egg, at room temperature

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• 1 cup  semisweet chocolate chips, divided

Directions:

1. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and sea salt. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, mash the ripe bananas with a fork. Add the melted butter and oil and stir until combined. Stir in the brown sugar, egg, and vanilla extract. Stir until smooth.

4. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, don’t overmix. Stir in 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips.

5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of chocolate chips over the top of the bread. Bake for 50-65 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out mostly clean, you might have some melted chocolate chips on the toothpick and that is fine. You just don’t want a lot of gooey batter. Check at 50 minutes, just to be safe. Oven times vary.

6. Remove the pan from the oven and set on a wire cooling rack. Let the bread cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edges of the bread and carefully remove from the pan. Let the bread cool on the wire cooling rack until slightly warm. Cut into slices and serve.

7. Note-the bread will keep on the counter, wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to 4 days. This bread also freezes well. To freeze, cool the bread completely and wrap in plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 1 month. Defrost before slicing.

Enjoy friends! :)

Crockpot BBQ Shredded Chicken

File this one under the actual easiest dinner of all time.

Thomas’ older sister gave us this recipe and we’ve loved the easiness and convenience of it. Actually, not sure you could even classify this as a recipe because there are only two steps, so we’re keeping it short and simple today and sharing how to make the juiciest, most delicious bbq chicken:

Ingredients:

• 4-5 boneless chicken breasts

• 1 bottle of your bbq sauce of choice

Directions:

1. Put whole chicken breasts in the crockpot and pour as much bbq sauce as you want to cover them completely. We say the more the better!

2. If chicken breasts are frozen, put crockpot on high for 4 hours. If chicken breasts are thawed, it should only take about 2-3 hours.

3. Shred the chicken directly in the crockpot.

4. ENJOY.

See what we mean? So incredibly easy and the best part is the kiddos love it, so it’s become a weekly dinner rotation in our house. We usually have enough for leftovers so we eat it for lunch the next day, too. We eat it on regular hamburger buns and make broccoli and either chips or some kind of potatoes in the air fryer. Oh! And a bbq chicken baked potato would be delicious, too.

Okay that’s all. Enjoy :) xx.

Fancy Frozen Pizza

When it’s been one of those days and we don’t feel like cooking, we pop a frozen pizza in the oven and call it a night. But lately, to spice things up (any excuse for a little extra happiness these days, right?), we mince some garlic and put it in a bowl with melted butter. We spread the garlic butter over the crusts and then bake the pizza at the recommended temperature and time. When they come out, they taste so much better and the garlicy buttery crust completely elevates the pizza.

We may never eat frozen pizza the same way again.

P&T